Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Migrants rest in Mexico City

4,500 get temporary home in stadium; up to 1,000 more due

- MARIA VERZA AND AMY GUTHRIE

MEXICO CITY — Humanitari­an aid converged around a stadium in Mexico City where thousands of Central American migrants winding their way toward the United States were resting Tuesday after an arduous trek that has taken them through three countries in three weeks.

Mexico City Mayor Jose Ramon Amieva said 4,500 migrants have arrived at the Jesus Martinez stadium since Sunday, and city officials are bracing for as many as 5,500 at the site by today. Hundreds of city employees and even more volunteers were on hand to sort donations and direct migrants toward food, water, diapers and other basics.

Migrants searched through piles of donated clothes, grabbed boxes of milk for children and lined up to make quick calls home at a stand set up by the Red Cross as U.S. voters went to the polls for midterm elections in which President Donald Trump has made the migrant caravan a central issue.

Employees from the capital’s human-rights commission registered new arrivals with biographic­al data— such as age and country of origin— and placed yellow bracelets on wrists to keep count.

Rina Valenzuela wore one of the yellow bracelets as she sat attentivel­y listening to aid workers from the nonprofit Institute for Women in Migration explain the difficulti­es of applying for and securing asylum in the U.S. Valenzuela, who is from El Salvador, decided she’s better off applying for refuge in Mexico.

“Why go fight there, with as much effort and as much suffering as we have gone through, just for them to turn me back? Well, no,” she said.

The aid workers explained that the asylum process in the U.S. could take years, with no guarantee of approval.

Honduran Antonio Perez listened to the warnings but said he remains determined to continue north.

“This is interestin­g but tough news,” he reflected. “But neither this nor Donald Trump is going to stop me.”

The atmosphere at the stadium was more institutio­nal and organized than what migrants encountere­d on the road, where townspeopl­e pushed bags of drinking water, tacos and fruit into their hands as they passed through areas in southern Mexico.

But there were signs Tuesday that the stadium was already nearing its capacity to hold 6,000 people.

Maria Yesenia Perez, 41, said there was no space in the stadium when she and her 8-year-old daughter arrived during the night, so the two from Honduras slept on the grass outside. Migrants pitched tents in the parking lot and constructe­d makeshift shelters from plywood covered with blankets and tarps. Forty portable toilets were scattered across the grass.

The stadium’s enclosed space and government interventi­on makes it difficult for aid workers to reach the migrants, said Nancy Rojas, an Oxfam charity worker who has accompanie­d the migrants for weeks.

Four big tents have been set up for women and children to sleep under with thin mattresses and blankets, while men were relegated Monday night to concrete bleachers. Temperatur­es dropped below 52 degrees Fahrenheit during the night in a city some 7,300 feet above sea level and still hundreds of miles from the U.S. border.

Several smaller groups were trailing hundreds of miles to the south. Mexico City Mayor Amieva said the city needs to “reinforce” to meet the needs of the migrants, especially vulnerable children and pregnant women.

Mexico City’s central market supplied 3.5 tons of bananas and guavas to refuel the crowd, plus 600 bottles of water. The human-rights commission said it planned to set up more tents and eating areas.

Many of the migrants sought treatment for blistered and aching feet, respirator­y infections, diarrhea and other maladies. City officials administer­ed vaccines for tetanus and influenza.

Trump has seized on the caravan as an election issue and portrayed it as a major threat, though such caravans have sprung up regularly over the years and largely passed unnoticed.

He ordered thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and vowed to detain asylum seekers in tent cities.

In dozens of interviews since the initial caravan set out from Honduras more than three weeks ago, migrants have said they are escaping poverty and rampant violence. Many are families traveling with small children. Some say they left because they were threatened by gang members or had lost relatives to gang violence. Others say they hope to work, secure a good education for their children and send money to support relatives back home.

Walkiria Viamney, 19, said she and her husband have relatives in Tijuana and California who have promised to help them cross into the United States. The pair from Honduras hoped to soon advance northward, although they relished the opportunit­y to rest and wash clothes in the stadium.

Organizers are urging members of the caravan already in Mexico City to await the arrival of stragglers and perhaps even the other caravans further back. The idea is to find strength in numbers. The outpouring of support for the caravan that first set out from Honduras on Oct. 13 has inspired thousands of others to march north from Central America.

Mexico City is more than 600 miles from the nearest U.S. border crossing at McAllen, Texas. A caravan last spring opted for a much longer route to Tijuana in the far northwest, across from San Diego. That caravan steadily dwindled to about 200 people by the time it reached the border.

 ?? AP/MARCO UGARTE ?? Central American migrants rest Tuesday in the shelter of the Jesus Martinez stadium in Mexico City.
AP/MARCO UGARTE Central American migrants rest Tuesday in the shelter of the Jesus Martinez stadium in Mexico City.

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