Mexico deports scores of Central American migrants
TIJUANA: Mexico deported scores of Central American migrants arrested after hundreds forced their way through a Mexican police blockade and headed for the United States but were met with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Around 500 men, women and children, part of a caravan of roughly 5,000 mainly Hondurans who have been trekking toward the US for weeks, scrambled over a rusted metal fence and surged into a concrete riverbed toward San Diego on Sunday.
The group was stopped by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire and US Border Patrol agents firing tear gas and rubber bullets. At least one man was wounded.
Mexico’s National Institute of Migration Commissioner Gerardo Garcia confirmed the 98 arrests on his country’s side, saying there were “instigators” in the migrant caravan pushing people to illegally cross the border.
The incident was the most serious flashpoint in a weekslong crisis that US President Donald Trump used to drum up support in this month’s midterm elections.
Trump hit out again by threatening a permanent closure of the frontier, and defended the use of tear gas by US border patrol, saying it was “very safe.”
“They had to use (it) because they were being rushed by some very tough people and they used tear gas and here’s the bottom line: nobody’s coming into our country unless they come in legally,” Trump told reporters.
“The tear gas is a very minor form of the tear gas itself. It’s very safe,” he later added.
Mexico sent a diplomatic note requesting that US authorities “conduct a thorough investigation of the events during which non-lethal US weapons were used in Mexico.”
Most of the migrants stumbled back into camp in the northwestern Mexican city of Tijuana, dirty, scared and with ripped clothes.
“We’re here with broken hearts and hopes,” said Andy Colon, a 20-year-old woman who travelled from Honduras with her sister and two children.
“We were deluded into believing that we had already reached the United States, and that they would grant us asylum,” Colon said.
The San Ysidro border post across from Tijuana -- the busiest crossing on the US-Mexico border -- was closed to traffic and pedestrians for several hours following the incident.
Many of the migrants say they are fleeing violence and poverty in Honduras in search of asylum north of the border.
Around 1,000 migrants, including women and young children, had been holding a peaceful midday demonstration in Tijuana when half of the group bolted toward the border.
The sudden rush overwhelmed the Mexican police, who were deployed with full riot gear.
Several hundred made it over the first barrier, with video clips posted on Twitter showing crowds of people dashing across a shallow concrete riverbed toward the United States. Trump has deployed nearly 6,000 troops to the border, on top of more than 2,000 members of the National Guard, but Scott said the Department of Defense was not involved in Sunday’s engagement. To enter the US legally, migrants must apply for asylum, but the wait for those requests to be processed can last up to a year.