Migrants protest at Mex. line

A small group of Central American migrants has marched peacefully to a border crossing in Tijuana to demand better conditions and push to enter the U.S.

Mexican police watched closely Thursday as authorities from the National Human Rights Commission and the Grupo Beta migrant support agency told the migrants their needs would be addressed.

They urged them to apply for humanitarian visas in Mexico and seek work in Tijuana, where they said thousands of jobs were available.

Several thousand Central American migrants arrived in Tijuana last week more than a month after leaving Honduras in a caravan.

The U.S. government only processes about 100 asylum applications per day at Tijuana’s main crossing to San Diego and there were already several thousand migrants on a waiting list.

A day earlier, Mexican immigration agents detained almost all of the Central American migrants on a fourth caravan that recently entered Mexico seeking to reach the U.S.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said 213 migrants were detained and taken to a processing center. Those found to lack proper documents may face repatriation to their home countries.

The migrants detained on a highway between the Guatemalan border and the southern Mexican city of Tapachula included 186 people from El Salvador, 16 from Guatemala, 10 Honduras and one Nicaraguan.

The group set out from El Salvador on Nov. 18 and apparently crossed the river dividing Guatemala and Mexico on Tuesday. That is the same route the three larger caravans took after entering Mexico starting Oct. 19.

The caravans find strength in numbers, and Mexican officials have been loath to confront the first caravans, which numbered between 1,500 and 6,000. But agents have detained smaller groups that split off from the larger caravans.

Mexico has offered residency and other types of visas to migrants in the caravans, but most have refused, saying they want to reach the United States.