Migrants get help moving along

Mexican officials find people rides on quest to U.S. border

QUERETARO, Mexico — Local Mexican officials again helped thousands of Central American migrants find rides yesterday on the next leg of their journey toward the U.S. border.

At a toll plaza to the west of the central Mexico city of Queretaro, where the group spent Saturday night, police prevented migrants from trying to stop trucks on their own but officers did help them find vehicles for rides.

The government of Queretaro said via Twitter that 6,531 migrants had moved through the state between Friday and Saturday. It said that 5,771 of those were departing yesterday morning after staying in three shelters it had prepared, the largest of which was a soccer stadium in the state capital.

Those numbers appeared even higher than counts made by officials when the group was in Mexico City for several days, raising the possibility that other migrants have caught up to the main caravan.

The migrants began walking before dawn yesterday for Irapuato about 62 miles to the west after crossing into Guanajuato state, where local authorities also assisted them.

A day earlier a similar scene played out as the caravan exited Mexico City. Dedicated metro trains moved migrants across the capital before dawn and at a toll plaza north of the city they formed orderly lines to wait for their turn to climb aboard passing 18wheelers that were willing to help them cover the 124 miles to Queretaro.

Emilson Manuel Figueroa managed a seat on the back of a flatbed truck packed with other migrants.

“I think that in my country I will get old and will never have something to live on,” said the 23-yearold cab driver from Honduras.

The migrants appear to be on a path to Tijuana across the border from San Diego, which is still some 1,600 miles away.

TNS GETTING A BOOST: A man lifts a child into a semitruck trailer as others from the caravan of Central American migrants board trailers on the MexicoQueretaro highway, in the municipality of Tepotzotlan, Mexico, on Saturday.

AP TIGHLY PACKED: Central American migrants, part of the caravan hoping to reach the U.S. border, get a ride on a truck, in Celaya, Mexico, yesterday. Local Mexican officials helped thousands of Central American migrants find rides on the next leg of their journey toward the U.S. border.