Mexican town is teeming with caravan migrants

HUIXTLA, Mexico – The Central American migrants moving their way through Mexico as part of a controversial caravan – one President Donald Trump is pushing hard as a midterms election issue – is forging ahead in its journey to the U.S.-Mexico border. Waves of migrants – who U.N. officials estimate may be as high as 7,200 and growing – have arrived in the small southern Mexican town of Huixtla, where many camped out on Tuesday. Many staked out grassy spots in the town square to sleep outdoors overnight before continuing their grueling trip north. They were at least 1,100 miles from McAllen, Texas, the nearest U.S.-Mexico border entry. The center of Huixtla, a small town of about 30,000 people in southern Mexico, was teeming with migrants, who sought shelter from the sun under tarps and shaded sidewalks. Church groups served food and drink to migrants, while locals sold them everything from single cigarettes to coconut treats smothered in hot sauce. Among the migrants: Kevin Maldonado. The 20-year-old from Honduras said he had walked six hours from Tapachula to Huixtla under a scorching sun, passing through a Mexican immigration checkpoint just prior to entering Huixtla. “We’re tired,” he said from the shade of the sidewalk outside a camera store, where he slept the night before. “But the caravan is going to continue.” Maldonado said he had been picking coffee in western Honduras – where U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show an outflow of large numbers of migrants. But, he said, a plunge in coffee prices prompted him to consider taking the treacherous trip to the United States. He said he is not discouraged or dissuaded by Trump’s remarks and threats that the caravan would be stopped by soldiers, if necessary, and remains optimistic he can get to the U.S. “Maybe he’ll have a change of heart and give us a chance, he said of Trump. Maldonado says he wasn’t sure how he’d travel to the U.S., which would require transiting Mexico, where crimes against migrants range from kidnap for ransom to extortion to rape. But he saw a story on a Honduran news channel about the caravan being organized and thought it was his chance to flee the poverty rampant in his homeland. Danilo Ruiz, 26, said, he, too, joined the caravan after seeing a report on TV. “We were going to leave for the United States in January,” he said while resting in Huixtla with three friends – who all identified as LGBTQ and cited “discrimination and violence” for leaving. “We saw the news about this caravan, immediately packed our bags and left the next day.” The caravan began Oct. 13 when a group of mostly Honduran migrants embarked on the trip north, fleeing government corruption, extreme poverty and rampant violence. The caravan has trekked through Guatemala and is passing through southern Mexico with migrants from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. It was organized by Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a human rights group that provides aid and legal assistance to migrants. It’s the second organized caravan this year, but this one is considerably larger and has garnered more media attention than one last spring. One man reportedly died late Monday when he fell from the back of a truck and died.

AFP/GETTY IMAGES Honduran migrants take part in a caravan heading to the U.S., on the outskirts of Tapachula, on their way to Huixtla, Mexico.