Migrant caravan demands transport as 2nd group enters Mexico

Migrant caravan demands transport as 2nd group enters Mexico

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

https://s.hdnux.com/photos/76/50/70/.../7/920x920.jpg
A Honduran migrant smiles as he takes a break from walking to Tapachula from Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. He is part of a second caravan of more than
1,000 that forced its way across the river from Guatemala on Monday.

NILTEPEC, Mexico (AP) — 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 an extraordinary military operation, and Trump has continued to tweet and speak about the migrants.

On Monday he said he wants to build tent cities to house asylum seekers. And on Tuesday he floated the possibility of ending the constitutional right to U.S. citizenship for babies born in the country to noncitizens.

Experts widely dismissed the idea that the president could unilaterally change the rules on who is a citizen and said it's highly questionable whether an act of Congress could do it, either.

"According to what they say, we are not going to be very welcome at the border," Honduran migrant Levin Guillen said when asked about Trump. "But we are going to try."

The 23-year-old from Corinto, Honduras, was part of the first caravan, whose members set off Tuesday morning walking and hitching rides on the highway through Mexico's narrow, windy southern isthmus. They stuffed themselves into truck beds and sprinted alongside semi-trailer rigs, trying to grab hold and pull themselves up.

Guillen, a farmer, said he had been getting threats in Honduras from the same people who killed his father 18 years ago. He has been on his own since his mom died four years ago, and he hopes to reach an aunt who lives in Los Angeles and have a chance to work and live in peace.

"We just want to a way to get to our final goal, which is the border," he said.

The first caravan was still about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) from the nearest U.S. crossing at McAllen, Texas, and possibly much farther if it heads elsewhere.

Worn down from long miles of walking and frustrated by the slow progress, many have been dropping out and returning home or applying for protected status in Mexico.

The group is already significantly diminished from its estimated peak at over 7,000-strong. A caravan in the spring ultimately fizzled to just about 200 people who reached the U.S. border at San Diego.

Representatives have demanded "safe and dignified" transportation to Mexico City, but the Mexican government has shown no inclination to assist — with the exception of its migrant protection agency that gave some stragglers rides to the next town over the weekend.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras, the group supporting the caravan, has said it hopes to hold meetings in the Mexican capital with federal lawmakers and authorities as well as representatives of the incoming government that takes office Dec. 1 to discuss migrants' rights and the caravan's future.

But Mexican officials seem intent only on seeing the caravan melt away as it moves through the country. The government regularly reports the number of migrants who have applied for refugee status or agreed for assisted bus trips back to their home countries.

The second caravan entered Mexico on Monday, crossing the Suchiate River from Guatemala. That followed a more violent confrontation on the border bridge over the river Sunday night, when migrants threw rocks and used sticks against Mexico police.

Hondurans in the group spoke of fleeing the same conditions: poverty and gang violence in one of the world's deadliest countries by homicide rates. They said asylum in the United States is their primary goal, but some expressed openness to applying for protected status in Mexico if that doesn't work out.

"Continue on to the United States, that is the first objective," said Carlos Enrique Carcamo, a 50-year-old boat mechanic from Choluteca. "But if that's not possible, well, permission here in Mexico to work or stay here."

Dayvin Herrera, a 24-year-old computer teacher from Tegucigalpa, said he can't go back to "the bloodshed (that) is multiplying in our country."

"One becomes a marked man," Herrera said.

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/te...p-13346926.php

"Organized Busing Operation" Exposed, Moving Migrants Closer To US Border

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defa...?itok=Hy1esx2b

...Just in time for election day.

Tue, 10/30/2018 - 18:50
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Traveling at a sluggish pace of 10 miles per day, the migrant caravan probably wouldn't arrive at the nearest US border crossing at McAllen, Texas until February, according to one observer, who debunked claims widely circulated by the media that the caravan would arrive before the Nov. 6 midterm election.
But as it turns out, the organizations that have been aiding the caravan since it first formed in Honduras nearly three weeks ago have already accounted for this. And to help ensure that images of border patrol agents arresting families and separating small children from their parents are flashing across cable news in the days and hours before the polls open, these groups are employing a new tactic: Busing.
That's right. As Fox News report on Tuesday showed, migrants traveling with the caravan are being loaded on to chartered buses and transported to the next stop on the trail to the US, having refused Mexico's offer of asylum, shelter and jobs should they opt to stay in the country. Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins revealed that multiple professional buses have lined up to board the migrants, as footage from the report showed.

https://youtu.be/c4CeDNGQpxk

Youtube Video https://youtu.be/c4CeDNGQpxk

As more than 5,000 troops mass on the border and a second caravan crosses into Mexico from Guatemala, Jenkins exposed more than 11 buses carrying some of the migrants organized in the state of Oaxaca. While the buses can't carry every member of the caravan - that would require more than 80 buses, by Fox's count, they can speed members closer to their next stop. Meanwhile, two more caravans in Guatemala and El Salvador.

"Something new that’s developing here," Jenkins said as he wandered the bus loading zone. "We’ve seen the 5,000 strong caravan walking to the border but now they’re waiting for a ride to the border. This is the first time I have seen an organized bus operation from the state of Oaxaca actually getting volunteer buses to put people … on them and take them to their next location."

The buses are just the latest example of the support the migrants have received from local townspeople and organizations from within Mexico, as the country's police and military have largely stood aside despite President Trump's demands that the Mexican government do something to slow or stop the caravan.

That’s very significant now because these towns continue to help them. When we began this way back a week or so – Mexican police were trying to dissuade them from going across the Guatemala-Mexico border. At least some of the towns are assisting them to make their way.

It's unclear who's paying for the buses or when more would be coming (but Jenkins believes more are on their way). However, the motivation behind the campaign should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the first caravan formed. Getting the migrants to the border, where Trump's beefed-up border presence is waiting, is clearly a key component of the Democrats' election strategy (and has taken on increased importance since the Democrats attempts to make the vote about health care have largely foundered). Their logic probably looks something like this. Step 1. Get the migrants to the border in the days before the vote. Step 2. Replay the outrage blitz that followed Trump's order to separate migrant children from their families earlier this year. Step 3. Convince moderates that they would be committing an inhumane act by supporting Republicans. Step 4. (hopefully) victory.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...oser-us-border