US warning over flood of migrants

THREAT: HONDURAS, GUATEMALA AID WILL STOP – TRUMP

Former Honduran lawmaker detained, will be deported.

Washington

The organiser of a migrant caravan from Honduras was detained in Guatemala on Tuesday as the US government threatened to withdraw aid from both countries and El Salvador if the flow of migrants north to the United States was not stopped.

Up to 3 000 migrants, according to organisers’ estimates, crossed from Honduras into Guatemala on a trek northward after a standoff on Monday with police in riot gear.

The Honduran Foreign Ministry called on its citizens not to join the group. The government “urges the Hondurans taking part in this irregular mobilisation not to be used by a movement that is clearly political”, it said.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said in a public address on Tuesday evening some Hondurans in the caravan had already returned home and the government was preparing to support them. He did not specify how many had turned back.

Over the border, Guatemalan police officers detained Bartolo Fuentes, a former Honduran lawmaker, from the middle of the large crowd that he and three other organisers had led from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, since Saturday.

The moves followed comments by US President Donald Trump that his administration would halt aid if the Central American governments did not act, his latest effort to demonstrate his tough stance on immigration.

The Honduran security ministry said Fuentes had been detained because he “did not comply with Guatemalan immigration rules” and would be deported back to Honduras.

Security officials at the Honduran border with Guatemala in Agua Caliente blocked the road to prevent another much smaller group from getting through, television images from the border showed.

Adult citizens of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua need only present national identity cards to cross each others’ borders. That rule does not apply when they reach Mexico.

The local offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement on Tuesday evening they were worried about the safety of migrants in the caravan, noting the group included women, children and senior citizens. – Reuters