EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Multiple migrant caravans are moving north from southern Mexico, and more are scheduled to leave this week, Mexican news outlets in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Tlaxcala report.
The caravans are assembling as thousands staying in public parks, streets and hostels in Chiapas near the border with Guatemala can’t get jobs, are going hungry and fear asylum in the U.S. may be curtailed should Donald Trump win the presidency, reports quoting migrants and activists say.
Migrant encounters drop fourth straight month in San Diego The first caravan of 600 to 800 people left the city of Tapachula on Oct. 5. After being taken down from cargo trains, 139 participants were in an auditorium on Wednesday in San Cosme Xaloztoc, Mexico, El Sol de Tlaxcala reported.
Some of the 100 single men, 23 women and 16 children from Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Haiti, part of the “God Guides Us” caravan, told reporters their goal remains to cross into the United States. Mexican immigration officials reportedly promised not to detain them.
72 migrants found in storage shed, Border Patrol says The newspaper published photos of people with backpacks wandering the streets and police officers guiding them inside the auditorium.
A second caravan of nearly 1,000 migrants left Tapachula on Sunday. One-hundred-fifty participants had made it into Oaxaca this week, also trying to beat Trump to the punch. The Republican presidential candidate has promised to close the border to illegal immigration and deport millions of undocumented migrants already in the country.
Special report: Horse units patrol border from dusk till dawn The migrants told NVI Noticias in Oaxaca that applying for an asylum appointment in the U.S. through the online CBP One app takes too long and that traveling in a caravan protects them from being preyed on by criminals and smugglers.
Luis Garcia Villagran, director of the Tapachula-based Center for Human Dignity, told local news media that thousands of migrants from all over the world are “trapped” in Tapachula due to delays in issuing of humanitarian travel permits by Mexico and the slowness of the CBP One app in the United States.
A GOP rep asked ICE for an update. Then Trump ran with the number “The Hidalgo Central Park is full of migrants – a situation we had not seen in months. The concentration of people there is a clear reflection of the magnitude of the problem,” Garcia told the Aqui Noticias news portal in Chiapas.
He also told the Mexico City news portal of journalist Azucena Uresti that a recent army massacre of migrants , whom soldiers allegedly confused with smugglers, has further sowed fear.
Mexico still sees steady flow of migrants to US border “A human ‘knot’ has formed in Tapachula because of the bureaucracy of (Mexico’s) National Migration Institute. As we speak, 40,000 to 45,000 migrants, 30 percent from the Middle East and Africa, are stuck and trying to leave for the United States before the end of the year,” Garcia told the portal. “What this does is put them in the hands of smugglers colluding with authorities.”
Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border He said at least 4,000 migrants are already on the move out of Chiapas, whether in caravans or in smaller, family-based groups.
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