New Honduran Migrant Caravan Reaches 4000 in Guatemala
New Honduran Migrant Caravan Reaches 4000 in Guatemala
by Bob Price and Ildefonso Ortiz 20 Jan 2020
At least 4,000 Honduran migrants crossed the border into Guatemala with the intent of entering Mexico and making their way to the United States. The number continues to rise despite Guatemalan efforts to stem the flow of northbound Honduran migrants.
Guatemalan officials told Reuters, “at least 4,000 people have entered from Honduras since Wednesday.” The article states the group is one of the largest since the Trump Administration entered new immigration enforcement agreements with the regional partners.
Over the weekend, Guatemalan national police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents assigned to that country rounded up and deported nearly 300 who illegally crossed the border, Breitbart Texas 528.
As hundreds managed to make their way through Guatemala to the southern border of Mexico, they were greeted by Mexican National Guard and Marines. The migrants attempted to force through the established port of entry but troops held their ground.
Many of the Honduran migrants returned to shelters in northern Guatemala to await the arrival of thousands more of their countrymen, Reuters stated. They are planning a mass crossing Monday, January 20.
“If we cross alone, they’ll get us, and all the sacrifices we’ve made to get here will have been in vain,” Jose Luis Cruz, a 33-year-old autoworker who left his wife and two children in Honduras, told Reuters.
About 600 migrants gathered in a shelter in Tecun Uman, Guatemala. An additional 1,300 rested in a makeshift camp, a local priest told the news agency.
Mexico offered up to 4,000 jobs to the migrants if they will stay and not attempt to transit through the country to the U.S., Breitbart Texas reported.
“There is a way for them to have work. My ideal is full employment – work for everyone… and the right to work guaranteed,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a Friday press conference reported on by the Anadolu Agency.
Earlier this week, officials said the migrants will not be allowed through Mexico to the U.S., Breitbart Texas reported. “We will not have a transit visa or safe passage,” Mexico’s Secretary of Interior Olga Sanchez Cordero told Expansion Politica. “There will be special enforcement and there will be immigration agents.”
“If they want Mexico to give them entry in an asylum capacity or as refugees or under any immigration status for work, studying …. We will gladly work with them,” Cordero told El Universal.
https://www.breitbart.com/border/202...-in-guatemala/
