The main caravan of Central American migrants spent a rain-drenched night outside before continuing their slow walk through southern Mexico, on a path that is taking them toward the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. border.
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| Maria Gomez, 22, carries her son David Moises, 1, as the thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans migrants hoping to reach the U.S. border moves onward from Juchitan, Oaxaca state, Mexico, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. Thousands of migrants resumed their slow trek through southern Mexico on Thursday, after attempts to obtain bus transport to Mexico City failed. |
The main caravan of Central American migrants spent a rain-drenched night outside before continuing their slow walk through southern Mexico, on a path that is taking them toward the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. border.
It remains unclear whether the caravan — the first of several that have sprung up — would make a turn east to Mexico City, or try to reach the nearest and most dangerous stretch of border, which lies almost directly north. Divisions began to appear about what route to take.
It also remained unclear how many would make it; 20 days of scorching heat, constant walking, chills, rain and illness had taken their toll. Mexico's Interior Department said Thursday nearly 3,000 of the migrants have applied for refuge in Mexico and hundreds more have returned home. At its peak, the caravan had about 7,000 people.
Honduran migrant Saul Guzman, 48, spent the night under a tin roof in the Oaxaca state town of Matias Romero with his son Dannys, 12, before setting out for the town of Donaji, 30 miles (47 kilometers) north.
"I have been through a lot," said Guzman. "I want to spend my time differently, not in poverty."
In his hometown of Ocotepeque, Honduras, he left behind a coffin, either for his mother, who suffers dementia, "or for me, if I don't make it," Guzman said.
The migrants had already made a grueling 40-mile (65-kilometer) trek from Juchitan, Oaxaca, on Thursday, after they failed to get the bus transportation they had hoped for. But hitching rides allowed them to get to Donaji early, and some headed on to a town even further north, Sayula.
Their trips have already been fraught with perils.
Cesar Caraca, a 26-year-old migrant from Honduras, said he killed a poisonous coral snake in the brush near the site at the entrance to Matias Romero where they set up camp Thursday.
"This bites a child and kills him," Caraca said. The meter-long snake, along with complaints of bad smells and poor lighting, led some migrants to move to an empty hotel that had been damaged by a 2017 earthquake.
The migrants have not said what route they intend to take northward or where on the U.S. border they plan to reach, but any trek through the Gulf coast state of Veracruz could take them toward the Texas border. Another large caravan early this year passed through Veracruz but then veered back toward Mexico City and eventually tried to head to Tijuana in the far northwest. Few made it.
Immigration agents and police are nibbling at the edges of two caravans currently making their way through southern Mexico.
While authorities haven't directly targeted the main caravan of about 4,000 migrants, a second, smaller caravan about 200 miles behind the first group appeared to be more leaderless, get less press attention and be more vulnerable.
A federal official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said 153 migrants in the second caravan were detained Wednesday during highway inspections in the southern state of Chiapas, a short distance from the Guatemalan border. While the precise size of the second caravan is unclear, that could be equivalent to about 10 percent of those participating.
And there was also pressure on the first caravan. Not only did the hoped-for buses not arrive, but federal police began pulling freight trucks over and forcing migrants off, saying their habit of clinging to the tops or sides of the trucks was dangerous.
"Get off! Get off!" police officer Benjamin Grajeda shouted to a group of migrants clinging to the side of a truck outside Juchitan. "You can ride inside, but not on the outside."
At other points along the route, police have forced overloaded pickups to disgorge migrants. On previous days, they have ordered passenger vans to stop transporting migrants.
But U.S. President Donald Trump ramped up his pre-election focus on the caravan and others behind it, talking of creating a U.S. military force on the border that would outnumber the migrants, many of them women and children.
"As far as the caravan is concerned, our military is out," Trump said. "We have about 5,800. We'll go up to anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border."
A third band of about 500 from El Salvador made it to Guatemala, and a fourth group of about 700 set out from the Salvadoran capital Wednesday.
Similar caravans have occurred regularly over the years and passed largely unnoticed, but Trump has focused on the latest marchers seeking to make border security a hot-button issue in next week's midterm elections.
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