Add Category
Updated
Some of the Mexican towns playing host to a "caravan" of more than 1,200 Central American migrants heading to the US border have rolled out the welcome mat despite US President Donald Trump's call for Mexican authorities to stop them.
Key points:
- Hondurans make up the majority of the migrants
- Many are fleeing from political violence
- Donald Trump has threatened Mexico, calling on them to block the migrants
Local officials have offered lodging in town squares and empty warehouses or arranged transport for the migrants, who are participants in a journey organised by the immigrant advocacy group Pueblo San Fronteras.
The officials have conscripted buses, cars, ambulances and police trucks.
But the help may not be entirely altruistic.
"The authorities want us to leave their cities," Rodrigo Abeja, an organiser from Pueblo San Fronteras, said.
"They've been helping us, in part to speed the massive group out of their jurisdictions."
At some point in the coming month, the caravan's 3,200 kilometre journey that began at Tapachula near the Guatemalan border on March 25 will end at the US border, where some of its members will apply for asylum, while others will attempt to sneak into the United States.
So far the Mexican Federal Government has provided little guidance on how to handle the migrants, but Mr Abeja is worried that local reactions will change.
"There's a lot of pressure from authorities to stop the caravan because of Donald Trump's reaction," he said.
On Monday Mr Trump railed on Twitter against the caravan, accusing Mexico of "doing very little, if not NOTHING" to stop the flow of immigrants crossing the US border illegally.
"They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement]," he concluded.
Mexico's interior minister Alfonso Navarrete did not directly address the caravan, but he wrote on Twitter that he spoke to the US Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Monday, and the two had "agreed to analyse the best ways to attend to the flows of migrants in accordance with the laws of each country".
Mexico must walk a delicate line with the US as the countries, along with Canada, are in the midst of renegotiating the NAFTA.
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox called for officials to take a stand against Mr Trump's attacks, taking to Twitter to voice his concerns.
Under Mexican law, Central Americans who enter Mexico legally are generally allowed to move freely through the country, even if their goal is to cross illegally into the US.
'We're suffering', Hondurans say
Migrants in the caravan cite a variety of reasons for joining it.
Its members are disproportionately from Honduras, which has high levels of violence and has been rocked by political upheaval in recent months following the re-election of US-backed president, Juan Orlando Hernández in an intensely disputed election.
Maria Elena Colindres Ortega, a member of the caravan and, until January, a member of congress in Honduras, said she was fleeing political upheaval at home.
"We've had to live through fraudulent electoral process," she said.
"We're suffering a progressive militarisation and lack of institutions, and … they're criminalising those who protested."
Ms Colindres Ortega, who opposed the ruling party in Honduras, said she spiralled into debt, after serving without pay for the last 18 months of her four-year term.
She decided to head north after a fellow congressman from her party posted on Facebook that a caravan of migrants was gathering in southern Mexico, leaving home with just a small bag containing necessities and photos of her children.
Pueblo Sin Fronteras has helped coordinate migrant caravans for the last several years, though previously they had a maximum of several hundred participants.
During the journey members of the organisation instruct the migrants about their rights.
"We accompany at least those who want to request asylum," Alex Mensing, Pueblo Sin Fronteras' program director, said.
"We help prepare them for the detention process and asylum process before they cross the border, because it's so difficult for people to have success if they don't have the information."
Typically, Central Americans have not fared well with US asylum claims, particularly those from Honduras.
A Reuters analysis of immigration court data found that Hondurans who come before the court receive deportation orders in more than 83 per cent of cases, the highest rate of any nationality.
Hondurans also face deportation in Mexico, where immigration data shows that 5,000 Hondurans were deported from Mexico in February alone, the highest number since May 2016.
Reuters
Topics: immigration, foreign-affairs, refugees, world-politics, donald-trump, mexico, honduras, united-states
First posted