U.S. tightens border as migrants advance
Lanes at ports of entry in San Diego are closed
GUADALAJARA, Mexico — The U.S. government said it was starting work Tuesday to “harden” the border crossing from Tijuana, Mexico, to prepare for the arrival of a migrant caravan leapfrogging its way across western Mexico.
Customs and Border Protection announced it was closing four lanes at the busy San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry in San Diego, California.
It said the closures were needed “to install and pre-position port hardening infrastructure equipment in preparation for the migrant caravan and the potential safety and security risk that it could cause.”
That still leaves a substantial path for the tens of thousands of people who cross daily: Twenty-three lanes remain open at San Ysidro and 12 at Otay Mesa.
San Ysidro is the border’s busiest crossing, with about 110,000 people entering the U.S. every day. That traffic includes some 40,000 vehicles, 34,000 pedestrians and 150 to 200 buses.
A group of several hundred migrants moving ahead of the caravan made it to Tijuana on Tuesday aboard a fleet of buses.
About 1,300 migrants in a second caravan arrived in Mexico City, where they had their first day of rest in weeks Tuesday.
But things were especially tough for the first caravan. The estimated 6,000 Central Americans left shelters in Guadalajara early Tuesday and were taken by bus to a highway toll plaza to wait for rides to their next destination.
They thought other buses would be waiting for them to take them through hurricane-ravaged Nayarit to the neighboring state of Sinaloa, farther north. But no other buses showed up and few trucks passed to pick them up, leaving many to walk the 60 miles to the state line.
The first caravan appears intent on taking the Pacific coast route northward to the border city of Tijuana, which was still about 1,350 miles away. The migrants have come about 1,500 miles since they started out in Honduras around Oct. 13.
However, some small groups broke off along the way and went on ahead, either using buses, trains or long-haul truck rides to get to the border quicker. Small groups were reported in the northern cities of Saltillo and Monterrey, in the region near Texas.
The Tijuana city government said Tuesday that about 350 migrants had arrived and were receiving food before being sent to shelters around the city.