Caravan detained in old Mexican factory near Texas

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — A caravan of 1,600 Central American migrants was surrounded Wednesday by Mexican authorities in an old factory a short distance from Texas, where they hoped to seek asylum even as U.S. authorities sent extra law enforcement and soldiers to stop them.

President Donald Trump warned in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday of migrant caravans and accused Mexican cities of busing migrants to the border “to bring them up to our country in areas where there is little border protection.”

The migrants arrived Monday in Piedras Negras, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas. The caravan is the first in recent months to head toward Texas instead of California.

The state government organized 49 buses from the interior cities of Saltillo and Arteaga to ensure the migrants’ safety, said Jose Borrego, a spokesman for the Coahuila state government.

But Mexican police and soldiers are holding the caravan in the factory and not letting them stay anywhere else, in part to prevent a mass attempt by migrants to cross the Rio Grande. Only migrants who receive a humanitarian visitor visa from Mexico were to be allowed to leave the factory, Borrego said.

Coahuila has long been plagued by the now-fragmented Zetas cartel as well as by colder weather.

“We didn’t want to run the risks of them traveling in open trucks,” Borrego said.

People who want to enter the U.S. may wait weeks, if not months.