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News > Latin America

Central American Migrant Caravan Resumes March Toward US Border

  • Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the U.S., reach for donated blankets at the camp outside La corregidora stadium in Queretaro.

    Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the U.S., reach for donated blankets at the camp outside La corregidora stadium in Queretaro. | Photo: Reuters

Published 11 November 2018
Opinion

President Trump has vowed to deploy troops at the border to stop a caravan of migrants, who say they want to seek asylum in the United States, citing violence in their own countries.

Hundreds of Central American migrants, who refer to themselves as Central American Exodus migrant caravan, resumed their march north through Mexico Saturday, en route to the U.S. border where President Donald Trump has effectively suspended the granting of asylum to migrants who cross illegally.

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Trump's Friday order, which went into effect Saturday, means that migrants will have to present themselves at U.S. ports of entry to qualify for asylum and follow other rules unveiled on Thursday that seek to limit asylum claims.

"It doesn't matter what rules (Trump's) government imposes we cannot go back to our countries. I have a bullet in my arm and another in my shoulder. If I go back home, it'd be better for me to go with a casket," said 30-year-old Julio Caesar from Honduras, who declined to give his last name.

The caravan, made up mostly of Hondurans, started north again on Saturday morning following a rest of four days in Mexico City.

They carried backpacks, blankets, food, many with children in tow, and took the metro and then walked to the town of Tepotzotlan. There they were helped onto buses and trucks by authorities, who stopped traffic to ask motorists if they would take the migrants to the city of Queretaro, where a shelter was set up at a stadium.

Some of the migrants are set to arrive at the border city of Tijuana on Monday, while others later in the week to Reynosa and other border towns, according to migrant shelters.

"These (U.S.) policies leave migrants even more vulnerable, because they will be stranded in northern Mexico, with human traffickers lurking, because the Mexican government does not have the capacity to help them," said Oscar Misael Hernandez, a researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte.

Trump made his hard-line policies toward immigration a key issue ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections. He has vowed to deploy troops at the border to stop a caravan of migrants, who say they want to seek asylum in the United States, citing violence in their own countries.

He has also suggested that border officers should shoot at migrants who throw rocks at them from across the border, comments that he was forced to withdraw following a massive backlash from politicians and human rights groups.

Such incidents have in fact taken place in the past in which U.S. border patrol officers would shoot at people across the border in Mexican territories without facing any consequences from either country.

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