Thread: Latest migrant caravan begins arriving in southern Mexico

Latest migrant caravan begins arriving in southern Mexico

By MAYA AVERBUCH AND PATRICK J. MCDONNELL
JAN 17, 2019 | 6:00 PM
| CIUDAD HIDALGO, MEXICO


A man and his son walk across the Suchiate River bridge as Central American migrants cross the border between Guatemala and Mexico, near Ciudad Hidalgo in Mexico's Chiapas state on Thursday. (Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)


Hundreds of U.S.-bound migrants in the latest caravan of Central Americans have arrived in southern Mexico, where authorities were processing them in an orderly fashion for temporary immigration status.

The migrants began reaching the Guatemalan-Mexican border late Wednesday, and by midday Thursday scores were lining up on the bridge spanning the Suchiate River, which forms the international boundary between the two countries.

Late Thursday, Mexican authorities said they had processed 1,114 people from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua — including 969 adults and 145 minors — for humanitarian visas.

The calm scene stood instark contrast to that at the same spot last October, when migrants from a previous caravan engaged in fierce clashes with Mexican police at the border. This time, no police were deployed and the migrants queued up calmly.

Some 2,000 migrants are expected to seek entry to Mexico as part of the latest caravan. As in past caravans, most participants are Honduran nationals fleeing poverty and violence in their Central American homeland who passed through Guatemala on their way north. Many said they hoped to join loved ones already in the United States.

“In our country there is no work; we are dying of hunger or of bullets,” Javier Lopez, 22, told Diario del Sur, a newspaper in nearby Tapachula, Mexico.

Lopez said he was heading to the United States to seek “a new life,” and had no intention of ever returning to his native Honduras.

The caravan phenomenon has long drawn the ire of President Trump, who has labeled the organized journeys “an invasion” and a threat to U.S. security.

Earlier this week, Trump cited the latest caravan as a reason why Congress should fund a multibillion-dollar wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. A dispute about the efficacy of a wall has resulted in a partial shutdown of the U.S. government, even as the latest caravan heads north.

There was no reported violence as caravan participants waited calmly for inspection by Mexican immigration agents stationed at the entry gate leading from Guatemala. Mexican officials provided bottles of water to the migrants gathered in the open air beneath a relentless tropical sun.

In contrast to October, there were no police helicopters hovering overhead or Mexican police in riot gear on the scene.

“The [Mexican] officials are being very nice,” Jose Lira, a young Honduran man, told Diario del Sur. “We don’t want any fighting. We just want to get to the United States.”

When told that Trump didn’t want the migrants to settle in the United States, Lira responded: “Yes, but we only want to go to his country to work. ... We are not bad people, we just want a better life.”

Many are expected to seek political asylum in the United States, even though relatively few Central Americans qualify. And while adult asylum applicants may face long waits in U.S. immigration detention lockups, minors and parents traveling with minor children may be released on bond while their asylum applications work their way through U.S. immigration courts, a process that can take months or years.

Participants say caravans provide security from Mexican gangs that often prey on migrants and avoid the need to pay smugglers thousands of dollars to aid them on the trip north. Caravan members often receive free food, transport and lodging from residents, towns and aid agencies along the route, though many sleep in the open without shelter.

The latest caravan left the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula earlier this week. .

The influx of caravan members into Mexican territory is expected to continue for several days as individuals and groups still walking or trying to catch rides make it to the Mexican frontier.

A separate caravan of several hundred people was also en route to Mexico from El Salvador.

While many set out on foot, most caravan members appeared to have secured rides for much of the trip from Honduras.

Guatemalan immigration authorities counted 1,701 people in the latest caravan, though migrant advocacy groups said those numbers did not include some who crossed illegally from Honduras into Guatemala, and others who joined in Guatemala.

Of the 1,701 counted, Guatemalan immigration authorities said that 1,219 (or 72%) were male and 482 (28%) were female. The caravan included 325 minors, about 19% of the total.

Like earlier caravan travelers, many say they seek to reach the United States, more than 1,000 miles to the north. But others have indicated they may be receptive to offers from Mexican authorities to remain in Mexico and find work. Some may apply for refugee status in Mexico.


“The United States is not allowing us to enter easily, so I’d have to go illegally…. It’s dangerous,” said Ernesto Centeno, 28, a construction worker from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, who was among those hopeful of finding employment in Mexico.


Mexican officials made no effort to stop the flow, and the international bridge remained open in both directions. But Mexico was requiring that all register to receive documents allowing them to remain in Mexico for humanitarian reasons.

Officials fitted migrants being processed with plastic bracelets to identify them and their cases.

“My mission is to cross into the United States,” said Wendy Jaquelin Lobos, 25, who was traveling with two of her four children, a son, 6, and a daughter, 8 — both carrying backpacks — and was waiting in line for a Mexican visa. Her other children remained at home in Honduras with her mother, she said.

“Life in Honduras is difficult, especially economically,” said Lobos, who is from the Honduran town of Quimistan.

Like others, she was drawn to the caravan by posts on social media and news reports.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office Dec. 1, has said that the migrants would be welcome and have the opportunity to gain legal residency and work permits in Mexico if they chose to remain in this country.

“We are putting in place a protocol … to be able to give them a dignified treatment with respect of the human rights of all the migrants,” David Leon, who heads Mexico’s civil protection efforts, told Reforma newspaper.

The plan was for caravan members to be transported to shelters in the border area. They would probably remain in the shelters for five days until their immigration paperwork was ready, allowing them to travel legally in Mexico.

In October, several thousand members of an earlier caravan toppled fences on the Guatemalan side and clashed with Mexican police on the bridge over the Suchiate River.

On that occasion, the heavy deployment of Mexican police — who fired tear gas to disperse the migrants — prevented the Central Americans from storming the border.

Many who retreated later crossed illicitly into Mexico, swimming a short distance across the Suchiate or catching rides on rafts crafted of inner tubes and wooden planks. They eventually regrouped on the Mexican side and headed north, without impediments from Mexican police.

Some 6,000 migrants from that caravan and several subsequent caravans eventually made it in November to Tijuana, across from San Diego.

This time, however, there was no need for the caravan travelers to try and sneak into Mexico via the river.

https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-...117-story.html

New migrant caravan of 1,700 Hondurans heads to Mexico border, set sights on U.S.

“My mission is to cross into the United States,” said Wendy Jaquelin Lobos, 25, who was traveling with two of her four children, a son, 6, and a daughter, 8 — both carrying backpacks — and was waiting in line for a Mexican visa. Her other children remained at home in Honduras with her mother, she said.

I'm guessing she brought those two children to guarantee her free admittance into our country's interior through Trump's catch & release program.

Come to the border, sneak in, turn yourself into BP and then you'll get a free pass into our interior. Not to worry, you'll get your work permit in 180 days. Up to that point you can just work here illegally. Oh, and don't forget to register your children in our schools and for the free breakfast and lunch program.

"Julia Escalon, 43, of the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, rested under the shade of a tree on the Guatemalan side, cradling her 2-year-old daughter in her arms. Escalon brought along a total of four daughters on the trip. "In San Pedro, we have nowhere to live. We can't even afford to rent a place," Escalon told The Associated Press. "I'm going to fulfill my dream and get to the United States."

Can't even afford to rent a place, but can have four kids.Ridiculous! Why have four kids when you can't take care of them. Statements like hers make my blood boil. And she's 43 and has a 2 year old. When do they stop? They need to learn birth control.

Nearly 1,000 caravan migrants start process of entering Mexico from Guatemala

GUATEMALA-MEXICO BORDER – Approximately 1,000 Central American migrants in the newest caravan have begun the process of crossing into Mexico from Guatemala, a Mexican immigration official stationed at the border between the two countries told Fox News on Thursday night.

A new process instituted by Mexico means that migrants will have to wait five days for their paperwork to be processed before entering the country. The new system is meant to keep things orderly after the last caravan rushed the border via the Suchiate River at the Guatemalan border city of Tecún Umán.

Migrants arriving at the border Thursday were given identification bracelets and directed to a Mexican immigration office, where they filled out paperwork for a one-year visa to work and travel in Mexico.

Members of the caravan are currently staying in Guatemalan shelters and camping out in a nearby park. However, officials are planning to open a shelter on the Mexican side of the border Saturday to house migrants until they are allowed to enter the country.

So far, there have been no visible confrontations like the fights marked the arrival of another Central American caravan in October, when migrants tried to push through closed gates and ranks of riot police, leading authorities to fire pepper spray. However, some caravan members have told Fox News they don't trust the Mexican government and may try to cross the border bridge again.

Previous estimates put the caravan at about 1,800 people, including about 100 from El Salvador. But, many of the migrants were still traveling through Guatemala, and it was difficult to say how big the caravan would be once it started making its way through southern Mexico.

Julia Escalon, 43, of the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, rested under the shade of a tree on the Guatemalan side, cradling her 2-year-old daughter in her arms. Escalon brought along a total of four daughters on the trip. "In San Pedro, we have nowhere to live. We can't even afford to rent a place," Escalon told The Associated Press. "I'm going to fulfill my dream and get to the United States."

However, that may not be easy. The border city of Tijuana was saturated by the first caravan in November, testing the patience of the city's residents, and Mexico's new government has since agreed to house third-country migrants while their asylum claims are heard in the United States.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/hundre...ntering-mexico

Apprehend and send them ALL back into Mexico.

They were offered asylum and jobs there!

THEY ARE NOT WELCOME HERE! THEY HAVE NO WORK PERMIT, NO PAPERS AND DO NOT QUALIFY FOR ASYLUM!

SO WHERE IS THIS ILLEGAL ALIEN GOING TO PUT HIS DAUGHTER WHILE HE WORKS ALL DAY?

Fox News is reporting the Mexican authorities unlocked a gate last night, left it wide open, and let everyone, up to 1,000 illegal aliens just walk right in. They have now locked it again.

Mexico is complicit and facilitating this illegal alien invasion!

Their town people do NOT want them anymore. They are ungrateful for the food, they TRASH the towns, they defecate in the streets and they have had it with them.

We do not want them either! Keep them out.

Close the whole border down now...they loose millions and they will then end it and send them back!

Our hospitals and schools are overwhelmed...they are bankrupting us!

CONGRESS NEEDS TO STOP THIS TODAY! DO YOUR DAMN JOBS AND SHUT THIS DOWN!

They are indeed bankrupting US, Beezer. It has to be stopped. But I swear I don't how we can even try to stop it now. With Open Borders DemoQuacks in charge of the US House of Representatives, there's no way we're going to pass any laws to stop it, no way we're going to get anything close to the funding we need to stop it. I just can't believe Americans voted the way they did in the 2018 mid-terms and betrayed our country in such a horrible way at such a crucial time.

It is going to take the citizens of the United States of America to get down their ourselves...a Two Million Man March...and demand our border is closed to this unrelenting invasion of OUR country.

It must stop now. Every American needs to step up and stop renting them homes, stop hiring them, stop helping them to break our laws!

Churches need to stop helping them. Stop giving them One Billion of OUR money! They need to lose their tax-exempt status and start paying up taxes.

Every government employee who awards them taxpayer funded benefits and IRS tax refunds needs to be fired!

We need to stand up to this destruction of our country by liars who come here illegally and are bankrupting our cities, towns and our country.

Why would anybody want one dime of their paycheck go to pay for this let alone $133 BILLION a year!!! Our money that should be spent of helping American citizens!

Jose Angel Gutierrez, professor, University of Texas, Arlington; founder of La Raza Unida political party; and beneficiary of American generosity:


"We have an aging white America. . . . They are dying. . . . They are ******** in their pants with fear! I love it!" "We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him."



AZTLAN LEADER QUOTES
"While I am saying this half serious and half joking, I think we are practicing la reconquista in California."
~ Jose Pescador Osuna, Mexican Consul General, Feb 2002.

"I have proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders and that Mexican migrants are an important - a very important - part of this."
~ Ernesto Zedillo, Former President of Mexico, speaking in Chicago, July 23, 1997.

"Mexico extends beyond its borders."
~ Vicente Fox, Current President of Mexico, speaking to a gathering in Milwaukee in July of 2001

"California is going to be a Hispanic State and anyone who doesn't like it should leave. They should go back to Europe."
~ Mario Obledo, President of the Californian Coalition of Hispanic Organisations, June 1998

"Our devil has pale skin and blue eyes..." "To the gringos in the audience, I have one final message to convey, 'Up yours, baby. You've had it, from now on.' "
~ Jose Angel Gutierrez, professor, University of Texas.


"We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. The explosion is in our population... I love it. They are sh!tting in their pants with fear. I love it.... We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him."
~ Jose Angel Gutierrez, professor, University of Texas.

"Remember 187 (proposition to deny taxpayer funds for services to non citizens) was the last gasp of white America in California."
~ Art Torres, Chairman of the California Democratic Party in front of 400 cheering Latinos at U.C. Riverside on January 14, 1995.

"We need to avoid a white backlash by using codes understood by Latinos... non-Latinos aren't watching, they aren't raising questions"
~ Fernando Guerra, professor, Loyola Marymount

"Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die. .. Through love of having children, we are going to take over."
~ Augustin Cebeda, of the 'Brown Berets', a militant Aztlan group at a violent rally in Los Angeles on July 4, 2000.

"Fair housing agencies report a surge in discrimination by immigrant landlords from many nations who refuse to rent outside their ethnic group."
~ Reported in Los Angeles Times, Nov. 21 2001.

"In an extraordinary political move, President Vicente Fox has announced the formation of a cabinet level agency to govern, protect and provide services to over 20 million Mexicans now living in Aztlan, a territory encompassing most of the southwest part of the USA. President Fox declared yesterday that he will personally lead the new agency he named "Consejo Nacional para las Comunidades Mexicanas en el Exterior" (National Council for Mexican Communities Abroad). The "Council" will consist of the president, most of the cabinet secretaries and a, as of yet unnamed, representative from Aztlan. This is a bold move that essentially extends the arm of the Mexican government into the territories it previously lost during the Mexican-American War of 1848."
~ Reported in "La Voz de Aztlan", August 7, 2002.

"We have Nicaragua, soon we will have El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Mexico. One day, tomorrow or five years or fifteen years from now, we're going to take 5 to 10 million Mexicans and they are going into Dallas, into El Paso, into Houston, into New Mexico, into San Diego, and each one will have embedded in his mind the idea of killing ten Americans."
~Thomas Borge, Nicaragua Interior Minister as quoted in the Washington Times, March 27, 1985