In southern Mexico, migrants tire of long trek, ask for buses
JUCHITAN, Mexico — Thousands of weary Central American migrants in a caravan that has advanced about 400 kilometres into Mexico but remains far from the U.S. border hope they won’t have to walk any more, at least for a while.
Representatives of the group sought Wednesday to negotiate the use of dozens of buses to carry the migrants hundreds of kilometres ahead, as the caravan took at least a day off from the grind of walking and hitching rides in packed trucks from small town to small town.
But as of the afternoon, there was no outward sign they’d had success in finding buses to carry them.
After bedding down at a cityowned property on the outskirts of the southern city of Juchitan, the migrants wandered around looking for something to eat as classic songs by Mexican singer Vicente Fernandez, known as “the king of ranchera music,” played in the background. Loudspeaker announcements discussed bathroom use and a prohibition on charging money to power their cellphones.
Red Cross personnel bandaged the swollen feet of Honduran farmer Omar Lopez, who had been pounding the hot asphalt of highways every day for the past two weeks after spending nights on concrete sidewalks with just a thin sheet of plastic for cover.
“We are waiting to see if they are going to help us out with buses, to continue the trip,” said Lopez, 27.
Organizers say the buses, if they do materialize, would take the estimated 4,000 migrants to Mexico City for meetings with legislators, not to the still-distant U.S. border, though some would probably continue to the border after reaching the capital.
That might not play well with U.S. officials: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday specifically praised Mexico for stopping the migrants from getting rides.
“Mexico has stepped up in an unprecedented way,” Sanders said. “They have helped stop a lot of the transportation means of these individuals in these caravans, forcing them walking. They have helped us in new ways to slow this down, to break this up and keep it from moving as aggressively toward the United States.”
The Mexican government has taken a fairly contradictory stance on helping or hindering the first caravan, reflecting the country’s balancing act: Officials don’t want to irk Trump, but Mexicans themselves have long suffered mistreatment as migrants.
For the first week of the caravan, Mexican federal police sometimes enforced obscure safety rules, forcing migrants off paid mini-buses, citing insurance regulations. They also stopped some overloaded pickup trucks carrying migrants and forced them to get off. But in recent days, officials from Mexico’s immigrant-protection agency have organized rides for straggling women and children on the caravan as a humanitarian effort.
And police have routinely stood by as migrants piled aboard freight trucks.