Second caravan enters Mexico en route to US
More than 1000 people in a second migrant caravan that forged its way across the river from Guatemala began walking through southern Mexico yesterday and reached the city of Tapachula – some 400 kilometres behind a larger group, and more than 1600km from the closest United States border.
Members of the latest caravan say they aren’t trying to catch up with the first, because they believe it has been too passive and they don’t want to be controlled. The activist group Pueblo Sin Fronteras has been accompanying the first group and trying to help it organise.
The first, larger caravan of about 4000 mainly Honduran migrants passed through Tapachula about 10 days ago and set up camp yesterday in the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan, which was devastated by an earthquake in September 2017.
The caravans have become a hot-button political issue amid an unprecedented pushback from US President Donald Trump. The Pentagon has announced it will deploy 5200 troops to the Southwest border.
Trump yesterday he floated the possibility of ending the constitutional right to US citizenship for babies born in the country to non-citizens.
Legal experts widely dismissed the idea that the president could unilaterally change the rules on who is a citizen, and said it was highly questionable whether an act of Congress could do it either.
‘‘According to what they say, we are not going to be very welcome at the border,’’ Honduran migrant Levin Guillen said when asked about Trump. ‘‘But we are going to try.’’
The 23-year-old from Corinto, Honduras is part of the first caravan. Guillen, a farmer, said he had been getting threats in Honduras from the same people who killed his father 18 years ago. He had been on his own since his mother died four years ago.
The first caravan is still about 1450km from the nearest US border crossing, at McAllen, Texas. Worn down from long days of walking and frustrated by the slow progress, many members have been dropping out and returning home or applying for protected status in Mexico.
The group is already significantly diminished from its estimated peak at over 7000 strong.
Representatives have demanded ‘‘safe and dignified’’ transportation to Mexico City, but the Mexican government has shown no inclination to assist, with the exception of its migrant protection agency, which gave some stragglers rides to the next town over the weekend.
Hondurans in the second caravan spoke of fleeing the same conditions: poverty and gang violence in one of the world’s deadliest countries by homicide rates. They said asylum in the United States was their primary goal. –AP