Weary immigrants near US, resting in Mexico City
Stop could be prolonged before journey to seek asylum resumes
CORDOBA, Mexico – Central Americans walking and hitching rides north in a caravan started reaching Mexico City over the weekend, marking another milestone on their winding odyssey toward the U.S. border as Americans voted in an election in which the immigrants became central figures.
The welcome in Mexico’s capital city has been warm. The local government turned a sports complex into a shelter to accommodate more than 5,000 weary immigrants, who for three weeks endured sore feet, sickness and downpours and survived on their wits and the generosity of Mexicans of modest means.
Mexico City placed the immigrants about 600 miles from the closest U.S. border crossing, in Brownsville, Texas. Denis Omar Contreras, a Honduran who works with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an immigrant advocacy organization accompanying the caravan, said the group will probably head toward the California border, more than 1,700 miles away. That’s the route previous caravans have taken to avoid the cartel-controlled territory in eastern Mexico.
The stop in Mexico City could be prolonged as the caravan regroups, members tend to their growing list of medical problems and legal advocates talk with them about their options.
“We’ll have a place to rest up there,” said Darby Flores, 28, a Honduran from the city of La Ceiba on the country’s Caribbean Coast. He hoped that during the group’s stay in Mexico City, “they can provide us with a permit to travel throughout the whole of Mexico.”
According to data released Saturday by the Mexican government, 2,793 caravan members accepted an offer from President Enrique Peña Nieto to receive temporary work visas, health benefits and the chance to enroll their children in school.
That leaves about 5,347 immigrants who refused, saying they want to try their luck in the U.S., where they could earn in an hour what they would make working in Central America for a week.
Rodrigo Abeja, a project coordinator with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said consular officials from the Central American nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras will help replace identity documents and offer assistance. Lawyers will provide legal advice on each person’s options for applying for asylum in Mexico or the U.S.
The Mexico City government dispatched teams offering medical and legal assistance. A person participating in the Mexico City assistance program said the idea was to provide caravan participants with incentives to stay put rather than proceed to the border.
The Associated Press reported Monday that the presidents of Guatemala and Honduras called for an investigation to identify caravan organizers. The two countries have been under intense pressure from President Donald Trump to clamp down on the caravans.
Trump used the caravan as a central campaign issue heading into Tuesday’s midterm elections. In recent weeks, he has vowed to cut off aid to Central American nations, threatened to seal the U.S.-Mexican border and deployed more than 7,000 active-duty troops to the border, adding to the 2,000 National Guardsmen and 16,500 Border Patrol agents there.
Trump cited the caravan throughout a series of campaign stops over the weekend in hopes of rallying his political base to offset rosy forecasts for Democrats in the election.
“If Democrats get elected … they want to turn America into a giant sanctuary city for violent predators and ruthless gang members,” Trump told an audience in Pensacola, Florida.
Most members of the last migrant caravan that arrived at the U.S. border this year legally presented themselves at ports of entry to apply for asylum.