Endstation aspiring to the caravan «DiePresse.com



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Vienna / Tijuana. Helicopters and drones day and night turn on the concrete river bed of the Tijuana River and the rust-brown border rampart, which stretches for several kilometers from the beach to the hills to the north. horizon and which is also partially secured with rolls of barbed wire. On the stretch of beach, where a wall is one meter long in the waves of the Pacific, which separates the border town of Southern California, San Ysidro, from the terracotta-colored shopping center of the Mexican metropolis Tijuana, agents of the American border police patrolling using jet skis. From time to time, the police holds the position high.

Whether on land, at sea or in the air: the Border Patrol is ready for confrontation with the "invasion" of Central America, as called by Donald Trump, their supreme commander, the refugee movement. After six weeks, 4,000 km and most of the time by bus, the first big caravan has reached its first destination: Tijuana, the gateway to myth in the United States. Just recently, Kirstjen Nielsen, the Minister of Homeland Security, severely criticized by Trump, took a picture of the situation.

In the meantime, tear gas clouds have dissipated. US special forces expelled Sunday from the vanguard of migrants from Central America's El Chaparral border post. "We are not criminals, we work hard," hundreds of protesters chanted before a few dozen of them withdrew from the protest, even trying to climb a metal wall to climb Mexican side. 98 people have been arrested and deported, said Monday Gerardo Garcia Benavente, head of the Mexican migration department, television channel Televisa.

"Go home!"

These are scenes that the US president evoked during the election campaign for congressional elections a few weeks ago when he spoke about the use of the military and the military. a national emergency. Now he feels confirmed. After returning from Thanksgiving vacation from his "Winter White House" in Palm Beach, Florida, Donald Trump tweeted in a proven way. "Go home!" He had called her in an initial reaction to repentance.

After the temporary closure of one of the busiest borders in the world in Tijuana, he threatened a permanent closure, which, given the millions of losses, would provoke an uproar in the border region between the Mexico and California. Every day, about 100,000 people cross the Tijuana border. The San Ysidro / El Chaparral border crossing posts nearly 40 million crossing points a year. Trump also urged Mexico to expel migrants immediately – including "frozen criminals", he said. "Get on the plane, get on the bus, do it the way you want, but they do not come to the US Everyone stays in Mexico." The best thing, according to Trump, is that Mexico should stop the caravan en route to the north. At the same time, he urged Congress in Washington to provide funds for his favorite project – the completion of the wall. This is probably a vain request because Democrats have overthrown the majority in the House of Representatives.

The naive dream of the country lacking

Although a US court of appeal has initially lifted a presidential decree tightening asylum rights, Trump insists that asylum seekers file their claim at an official US border post – this which would provoke a huge administrative marigot in Tijuana. Immigrants and Mexican authorities have been waiting for months. More than 5,000 migrants are already waiting in Tijuana, barely housed in the Benito Juarez Stadium, only a few hundred meters from the Dreamland – and thousands will follow.

In many cases, they had the naive idea of ​​being agitated by the United States. His tenor: "We thought it was easier." Many of them will try, alone or with the help of "coyotes" (tugs), to cross the border.

For now, the Trump government is urgently seeking a short-term solution with Mexico's new government, led by leftist populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who will be congratulated on Saturday. At first, Obrador envisions a gesture of goodwill from the neighbors to greet the migrants. But in Tijuana, the pressure is rising. The mayor called the humanitarian emergency, he launched an appeal to the UN. The patience of many residents moaning under the terror of the drug cartel is exhausted. During a protest march, hundreds of slogans chanted "to the touch" of Gringos Trump: "Mexico First", "No to the invasion".

From an eye catch

Caravan. In mid-October, the first Central American caravan of refugees from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala committed to escape poverty and gang crime. Meanwhile, more than 5,000 migrants have traveled to the border town of Tijuana in northern Mexico, about 2,000 to Mexicali – and thousands of them are still on their way.

("Die Presse", printed edition, 27.11.2018)

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