Migrants back on track after trains laid on
Bulk of caravan leaves Mexico City, heading north
THOUSANDS of Central American migrants were back on the move yesterday, as dedicated Mexico City metro trains whisked members of a caravan heading to the US border to the last stop on a line in the northern part of the capital.
The first subway train pulled out before 5am local time, with police, metro workers and human rights officials guiding the bulk of migrants through the city’s empty stations. At the Line 2 terminus they got out and began making their way to a main road to resume walking and hitch-hiking through Mexico.
Jose Enrique Ramirez (40) secured seats for himself and his 10-year-old son on the first departing train. “I’m happy,” he said, about being on the road once again.
He said another son had been killed in Honduras and he was receiving threats when he heard about the caravan.
Ramirez now joins roughly 4,000 migrants who plan to proceed first to Queretaro — a state capital 200km to the north-west — and then possibly to Guadalajara, Culiacan, Hermosillo and eventually Ti- juana on the US border where they will seek asylum.
Whereas in Mexico’s tropical south they carried tiny knapsacks with bare essentials, their belongings had swelled notably during their time in Mexico City.
Many are now hauling bundles of blankets, sleeping bags and heavy clothing to protect against colder temperatures in the north. Some left the capital with bottles of water and clear plastic bags of bananas and oranges for the long trek ahead.
Juan Jose Ramirez, a 35-year-old farm worker, said he left two kids behind in Santa Rosa, Honduras, and his goal was to find work in the US.
Walking through a subway station, he said it was important to be orderly because eyes were on them in Washington.
He also had a simple plan: he would get to the border and “wait for an answer from Trump”, he said.
The caravan became a campaign issue in US midterms election and the US president has ordered more than 5,000 troops to be deployed on the border to fend off the migrants. Trump has also threatened to make attaining asylum even more difficult and to detain applicants in tent cities.
But the longest and most dangerous leg of the journey is still ahead.
Last Thursday, caravan representatives met with officials from the local United Nations office and demanded buses to take them to the border, saying the trek would be too hard for walking and hitch-hiking. A day later, the UN denied the offer, saying its agencies were “unable to provide the transportation demanded by some members of the caravan”.
The migrants said they were so angry at the lack of help that they no longer wanted UN observers with the caravan, and they again set out on foot.
Mexico City is 1,000km from the nearest US border crossing at McAllen, Texas, but the area around the Mexican border cities of Reynosa, Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo is rife with drug gangs and the migrants consider it too risky. While still perilous, the route to California is safer.
A previous caravan which travelled in the spring opted for the longer route to Tijuana in the far north-west, across from San Diego. That caravan steadily dwindled to only about 200 people by the time it reached the border.
Mexico has offered refuge, asylum or work visas to the migrants, and its government said 2,697 temporary visas had been issued to individuals and families to cover them while they wait for the 45-day application process for a more permanent status.
But most migrants are vow- ing to continue to the US.
Giselle Owen, a 15-year-old from Honduras, belted out romantic ballads as the day’s journey got under way.
“It relaxes me and I feel like I don’t get tired,” she said. “I can walk hours singing.”
Others were already receiving rides from friendly Mexicans. Angelica Martinez saw David Rodriguez pushing his friend Rafael Peralta along the roadside in a wheelchair. She stopped to load the two migrants and the wheelchair into her small Volkswagen hatchback and said she would take them as far as she was going up the road.