Caravan demands transport as second group enters Mexico

NILTEPEC, Mexico — More than 1,000 people in a second migrant caravan that forged its way across the river from Guatemala began walking through southern Mexico on Tuesday and reached the city of Tapachula — some 250 miles behind a larger group and more than 1,000 miles from the closest U.S. border.

Gerbert Hinestrosa, 54, a straw-hatted migrant from Santa Barbara, Honduras, was traveling with his wife and teenage son in the newest group. Hinestrosa said he realized how hard it would be to reach his goal.

“Right now I feel good,” he said. “We have barely started, but I think it is going to be very difficult.”

Members of the latest caravan say they aren’t trying to catch up with the first because they believe it has been too passive and they don’t want to be controlled. The activist group Pueblo Sin Fronteras has been accompanying the first group and trying to help it organize.

The first, larger caravan of about 4,000 mainly Honduran migrants passed through Tapachula about 10 days ago and set up camp Tuesday in the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan, which was devastated by an earthquake in September 2017.

The two groups combined represent just a few days’ worth of the average flow of migrants to the United States. Similar caravans also have occurred regularly over the years, passing largely unnoticed, but the new ones have become a hot-button political issue amid an unprecedented push-back from U.S. President Donald Trump.

With just a week before U.S. midterm elections, the Pentagon announced it will deploy 5,200 troops to the Southwest border in a military operation, and Trump has continued to speak about the migrants.