Mexico vows to step up security at border after migrants try to cross
Mexico has pledged to shore up security near its border with the United States after local authorities said that 39 migrants were arrested after a peaceful march devolved into chaos when US agents fired tear gas into Mexico to stop some migrants who tried to breach the border.
Mexico’s Interior Ministry said yesterday it would immediately deport those who tried to “violently” enter the US from Tijuana. Authorities in Tijuana said that more than three-dozen migrants were arrested.
The vast majority of the more than 5000 Central American migrants camped out for more than a week at a sports complex in Tijuana returned to their makeshift shelter to line up for food and recuperate.
Lurbin Sarmiento, 26, of Copan, Honduras walked back to the sports complex with her 4-year-old daughter shaken from what had unfolded a short time earlier at the Tijuana River and US border.
She had been at the bottom of the river — a concrete riverbed conveying a trickle of water — near the border with her daughter when US agents fired tear gas. “We ran, but the smoke always reached us and my daughter was choking,” Sarmiento said.
She said she never would have gotten that close with her daughter if she thought there would be gas.
Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum has declared a humanitarian crisis in his border city of 1.6 million, which he says is struggling to accom-
modate the crush of migrants.
Mexico’s Interior Ministry said yesterday the country has sent 11,000 Central Americans back to their countries of origin since October 19, when the first caravan entered the country.
It said that 1906 of those who have returned were members of the recent caravans.