Tijuana declares ‘humanitarian crisis’

TIJUANA, Mexico — The mayor of Tijuana has declared a humanitarian crisis in his border city and said Friday he was asking the United Nations for aid to deal with the approximately 5,000 Central American migrants, most of whom were camping inside a sports complex.

The comments by Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum came as city officials and volunteers worked together to assist the 4,976 men, women and children who had arrived after more than a month on the road. The Trump administration has spent weeks lambasting the caravan, which it said was filled with criminals, gang members and even — it insinuated at one point without proof — terrorists.

Manuel Figueroa, who leads the city’s social services department, said Tijuana was bringing in portable toilets and showers, as well as shampoo and soap. It wasn’t enough. “Because of the absence, the apathy and the abandonment of the federal government, we are having to turn to international institutions like the U.N.,” Figueroa said.

Rene Vazquez, 60, a Tijuana resident who was volunteering at the stadium, said Mexico’s federal government ignored the problem by allowing the caravan to cross the country Morning light illuminates the face of a migrant woman as she and her child wake up after sleeping under a bridge at the Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico. The mayor of Tijuana says he has asked the United Nations for aid to deal with the approximately 5,000 Central American migrants who have arrived in the city.

without stopping. Now, the city of 1.6 million is stuck with the fallout.

Gastelum vowed not to commit the city’s public resources to dealing with the situation. On Thursday, his government issued a statement saying it was seeking help from the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The migrant caravan that left Honduras in mid-October was mostly well-received by the towns it passed through along the way to the border. But in those places, the caravan stayed at most two

nights — with the exception of Mexico City. In Tijuana, many of the migrants who are fleeing violence and poverty are seeking asylum in the United States and may spend months in the border city before they speak with a U.S. official.

Gastelum said Friday that the Mexican government has talked about sending 20 tons of resources to Tijuana to help but that three-fourths consisted of materials to reinforce the border and only 5 tons were for the migrants.

The mayor also criticized his government for not heeding President Donald

Trump’s threat Thursday to shut down the border if he determined that Mexico had lost control of the situation.

Trump said on Thanksgiving he’d signed an order to close the U.S. border with Mexico and authorized U.S. troops to use lethal force against migrants who attempt to enter the country. The White House hasn’t released the order, and Trump wasn’t clear about what the directive entails.

On Friday in a tweet, he called on lawmakers to fund his proposed wall along the Mexico-U.S. border.