Mexico readies for Central American migrants at south border
CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico — Border security forces in southern Mexico were preparing Friday for the expected arrival of hundreds of Central Americans traveling through Guatemala and vowed to prevent a repeat of the headline-grabbing “caravans” of past years when massive flows of migrants and asylum seekers overwhelmed agents.
National Guard and army troops stood watch as rafts plied the Suchiate River between the two countries at dawn. About 100 more guards, armed with riot shields, arrived in the afternoon to await orders.
A soldier who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly said more small groups of soldiers were expected to continue arriving from Tapachula. Small groups of migrants on the
Guatemalan side grew slowly as the day wore on.
“We have been tasked with being vigilant, and if we see a large group on the other side, we will deploy a human wall on this side to contain them,” another marine and member of the National Guard said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
It was expected that more Central Americans could arrive late Friday or on Saturday. River levels were so low that a backhoe was in the middle of its bed dredging up the muddy soil and men were damming sections so it would be deep enough for rafts to cross.
About a dozen Honduran cane-cutters were bathing in the murky waters on the Guatemalan side and sizing up the situation.
One of them, 37-year-old Osman Duran, was in the first caravan in 2018. He made it to the U.S. border and jumped the fence to turn himself in, only to be deported later. His wife and daughter are in Mississippi awaiting resolution of their asylum petition.
“We have to wait for the group and see what decisions are made,” Mr. Duran said.
Local resident Marvin Garcia, 41, who has made a living poling a raft on the Suchiate for two decades, predicted that migrants would avoid the kind of chaos seen in 2018 when there were clashes with agents at the border gates on the Mexican side, migrants jumping off the bridge into the water and wading across in large numbers.
He said far fewer are crossing these days compared with a half-year ago, when Mexico began deploying thousands of federal agents after President
Donald Trump threatened punishing trade tariffs, although it still happens along the length of the porous border.
Francisco Garduno, commissioner of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, was emphatic that migrants who try to enter the country irregularly would go no farther than here.
“They cannot enter because it would be in violation of the law,” he told the Associated Press.
Mexico’s interior ministry said in a statement that immigration agents and officials from the country’s refugee agency would be on hand to offer protection and potential temporary employment to those migrants who entered the country legally and agreed to stay in the south.
Christy Rivas, a 33-yearold who left her two children with her mother back in the Honduran capital,
Tegucigalpa, made her way onto the border bridge with another migrant to ask whether they would be allowed to pass. A Mexican agent halfway across asked if they were “part of the caravan” and directed her to the immigration outpost. Fearful of being entrapped and deported, they went back to wait for others to arrive: “United is better,” Ms. Rivas said.
She’s aware that Mexico and the United States have made it more difficult to get to and then stay in the U.S., but said it’s a necessary risk because there’s no work back home. That’s a complaint commonly cited by people on the migratory route out of Central America’s Northern Triangle Region of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, along with rampant gang violence, grinding poverty and to a lesser extent political persecution.