Aid arrives for caravan at Mexico City stadium
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 to attend 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.”