Migrants from caravan breach US border

TIJUANA, Mexico — Central American migrants stuck on the threshold of the United States in Mexico breached the border fence on Monday, risking almost certain detention by US authorities but hoping the illegal entry will allow them to apply for asylum.

Since mid-October, thousands of Central Americans, mostly from Honduras, have traveled north through Mexico in a caravan.

US President Donald Trump has vowed to stop the migrants, sending troops to reinforce the border and attempting a procedural change, so far denied by the courts, to require asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases are heard.

Frustrated and exhausted after weeks of uncertainty, many migrants have become desperate since getting stuck in squalid camps in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.

So a number opted to eschew legal procedures and attempt an illegal entry from Tijuana as dusk fell on Monday at a spot about 1,500 feet from the Pacific Ocean.

A number of the migrants ran to try to escape capture, but most walked slowly to hand themselves in to US Border Patrol officials waiting under floodlights. Some migrants are likely to be economic refugees without a strong asylum claim, but others tell stories of receiving politically motivated death threats in a region troubled by decades of instability and violence. Applying for asylum at a US land border can take months, so if migrants enter illegally and present themselves to authorities, their cases could be heard more quickly.