Migrants dig in to wait in squalor
TIJUANA: Thousands of Central American migrants are digging in for the long haul at a filthy, overcrowded sports complex in sight of the United States, while a few have opted to return home after clashes with border forces dimmed hopes of crossing.
The bedraggled men, women and children of a caravan of mostly Hondurans began cramming into the complex in Tijuana about three weeks ago. They now number more than 6000 in a space the city government first prepared for a third as many.
As the reality sinks in that those seeking asylum in the United States will probably have to remain in the Mexican border city for months, 350 people have asked authorities to help them travel home.
Jose Luis Tepeu (22), from Guatemala, was sleeping on cardboard boxes on the ground. He said he would wait only five more days to see if help would come to take him to the US, or even Canada.
‘‘If they don’t come, I’ll return to my home,’’ he said, saying salaries in Mexico were too low for him to stay and send money home to help his family.
‘‘You don’t earn well here.’’ To seek asylum, migrants must first sign on to a waiting list to see US border officials. The list already had a weekslong backlog before the caravan came. Adding to uncertainty are USMexico talks aimed at keeping
migrants in Mexico longer.
On Monday, US border guards fired tear gas canisters at a smaller group, including women and children, that rushed the border.
The violence seems to have shocked some, and dozens more asked to be sent home voluntarily on Tuesday, Rodolfo Olimpo, a migration official in Tijuana, said.
The overcrowding has also helped illness spread. There have been multiple cases of respiratory illnesses, lice and chicken pox, according to three city officials who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Too numerous to all fit into shelters, the migrants, who had travelled about 4800km since midOctober, were ushered into the complex to wait until US and Mexican authorities settled on how to deal with them.
Many have been living in tents, while others are in shelters made from trash bags or patches of cold floor walled off with backpacks and blankets, enduring the harsh elements and lack of privacy as they had learned to do on each leg of their near daily 50km treks from northern Honduras.
But despite the difficult conditions, many seemed determined to wait in Mexico for their chance to make their case to the US. More than 600 applied for permits to work in Mexico just on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said.
‘‘It cost me a lot to walk almost 15 to 20 hours a day, and to go back now: no,’’ said Anabell Pineda (26), who has pitched a tent in the stadium beside a neat pile of bags and blankets.
Pineda, who had travelled for almost a month from the violent Honduran city of San Pedro Sula with her 6yearold son, said she had arrived in Tijuana 13 days earlier, feeling unwell.
When she learned it would be nearly impossible to cross to the United States quickly under current US policies, she resolved to be patient and get a Mexican work permit meanwhile.
At the complex, men washed using buckets in a shower area beside reeking portable toilets and giant mud puddles. Women, wary of uninvited gazes, bathed with clothes on.
Sniffing through a blocked nose, Katherin Arita, a 17year old Honduran, said she had been losing weight since leaving her homeland a month and ahalf ago. She expected a wait of up to four months to try to enter the US.
At a gymnasium where the caravan’s first arrivals had set up neat rows of thin mattresses, a city official said there had been a chicken pox outbreak.
US President Donald Trump threatened this week to ‘‘permanently’’ close the US Mexican border if Mexico did not deport the Central Americans gathered in Tijuana.
Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who leaves office this weekend, responded that Central American migrants were welcome to stay in Mexico.
But he said the migrants had a right to request US asylum, and Mexico has repeatedly refused US requests to force them to seek refuge in Mexico instead.