Organizer says immigrant caravan not funded by political groups

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico — Nearly three weeks ago, Honduran activist Bartolo Fuentes posted a flier on his Facebook page about a group of immigrants heading north for the United States. “We are going to accompany these people,” he said.

Fuentes, a former congressman who hosts a radio program about immigration, said he expected the group to number about 200 people. But soon his post was being shared hundreds of times over, and Fuentes was flooded with responses.

“I’m going to go,” one person wrote.

“I’m ready for the trip,” said another.

“Can one go with children?” somebody else asked. “I am interested.”

When local television outlets in Honduras decided to feature the growing caravan, thousands more Hondurans packed their bags and joined.

Today, as the caravan makes its way through southern Mexico, it numbers around 7,000 people and stretches for miles — a spectacle that has led to widespread conjecture about its origins.

President Donald Trump has suggested that the caravan is being used as a cover for terrorists from the Middle East. Vice President Mike Pence said there are reports that Venezuela’s leftist government is funding the group.

Billionaire Democratic donor George Soros has been accused by figures on the right, and Russia has been accused by figures on the left, with both sides suggesting the timing might have something to do with the November midterm election.

But Fuentes insists it was none of those things.

“There are no institutions — religious, charity or political — that are financing this,” he said in a phone interview from Honduras, where he was deported after being detained by Guatemalan authorities. “The only ones using this car- avan in a political way are the Americans and Donald Trump.”

His skeptics on that point include some powerful Honduran politicians, who have accused Fuentes — a member of the main leftist opposition party — of both funding the caravan and acting as a “coyote” who took money from the migrants to smuggle them north.

Mireya Aguero, the country’s minister of foreign affairs, suggested recently that Fuentes organized the caravan to make Honduras look bad.

“This irregular mobilization was promoted and organized by the same actors as in the past and has always generated destabilization and ungovernability in the country,” she said.

Fuentes acknowledged that he has been an open critic of the Honduran government. But he pointed out that those marching in the caravan don’t belong only to the opposition party and aren’t interested in making political statements.