Us-bound migrants enter Guatemala, others clash at border
US army has already begun delivering jersey barriers to the southern border with Mexico: Mattis
SONSONATE: A new group of migrants bound for the United States set off from El Salvador and crossed into Guatemala on Sunday, following thousands of other Central Americans LEEING poverty AND violence who have taken similar journeys in recent weeks.
The group of more than 300 Salvadorans left the capital San Salvador on Sunday.
A larger group of mostly Hondurans, estimated to number between 3,500 and 7,000, who left their country in mid-october and are now in southern Mexico, has become a key issue in US congressional elections.
A third group broke through a gate at the Guatemala border with Mexico in Tecun Uman on Sunday, and clashed with police. LOCAL irst responders SAID that security forces used rubber bullets against the migrants, and that one person, Honduran Henry Adalid, 26, was killed.
SIX police oficers were INJURED, SAID Beatriz Marroquin, the director of health for the Retalhuleu region.
Mexico’s Interior Minister Alfonso Navarrete told reporters on Sunday evening that federal police did not have Any weapons, Even to ire plastic Bullets.
He said that some of the migrants had guns while others had Molotov cocktails, and this information had been passed on to other Central American governments.
Guatemala’s government said in a statement that it regrets that the migrants didn’t take the opportunity of dialogue and instead threw stones and glass bottles at police.
The US military has already begun delivering jersey barriers to the southern border in conjunction with plans to deploy active duty troops there, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said as a caravan of Central Americans slowly heads across Mexico toward the United States.
Mattis told reporters traveling with him on Sunday that details of the deployment are still being worked out.
They will include exactly how many forces are needed. It was unclear when the details will be made public.
The additional troops will provide logistical and other support to the Border Patrol, and will bolster the efforts of the approximately 2,000 National Guard forces already there. The new forces are expected to provide logistical assistance such as air support and equipment, including vehicles and tents.
National Guard troops routinely perform those same functions, so it is not clear why active duty forces are being used.
An estimated 2,300 children were traveling with the migrant caravan, Unicef said in a statement, adding that they needed protection and access to essential services like healthcare, clean water and sanitation.
Eduardo Grajales, a Red Cross volunteer in Arriaga, Mexico, attending to migrants on Friday night, said the worst case his colleagues had seen that day was of a baby so badly sunburned from the tropical heat, he had to be hospitalised.
US President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have sought to make immigration a major issue ahead of Nov.6 elections, in which the party is battling to keep control of Congress.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on “Fox News Sunday” said Trump was determined to use every authority he had to stop immigrants from crossing the border illegally.
“We have a crisis at the border right now ... This caravan is one iteration of that but frankly we essentially see caravans every day with these numbers,” she said.