Trump warns Honduras over migrant caravan
ESQUIPULAS, Guatemala — U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Tuesday to cut aid to Honduras if it doesn’t stop a caravan of some 2,000 migrants, even as they resumed their northward trek through Guatemala with hopes of reaching the U.S. border.
Despite having walked all day Monday with swollen, blistered and aching feet, the group rose shortly after sunrise from sleeping on the ground in their clothes.
Dozens attended Mass at the basilica in Esquipulas, a city just across the border from Honduras and about 90 miles east of Guatemala City. The migrants then resumed their journey escorted by Guatemalan police.
The group’s numbers have snowballed since about 160 migrants departed Friday from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, with many people joining spontaneously carrying just a few belongings. A Guatemalan priest estimated more than 2,000 were fed at three shelters run by the Roman Catholic Church.
Three weeks before midterm elections in the United States, the caravan elicited a tough response from Trump.
“The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately,” Trump tweeted.
However, the Central American nation’s ability to do anything appeared limited as the migrants already crossed into Guatemala on Monday, twice pushing past outnumbered police sent to stop them — first at the border and then at a roadblock outside Esquipulas.
Trump did not follow through on a similar threat to the Central American nation in April over an earlier caravan, which eventually petered out in Mexico.
In a statement, Honduras’ Foreign Ministry accused unidentified “political sectors” of organizing the caravan with “false promises” of a transit visa through Mexico and the opportunity to seek asylum in the United States.
It urged the migrants not to let themselves “be used by a movement that is obviously political and seeks to upset governability, stability and peace in Honduras and the United States.”
Meanwhile, Mexico’s immigration authority sent out a fresh warning late Monday that only those who meet entry requirements would be allowed into the country and each migrant would have to satisfy Mexican migration agents. Hondurans need visas to visit Mexico in most cases.
Still, it remains unclear if Mexico and other governments in the region — many of whose own people are migrants — have the political will to physically halt the determined border-crossers, who are fleeing widespread poverty and violence in one of the world’s most murderous countries.