A caravan of migrants accelerates the pace in Mexico [Estados] – 14/11/2018

Mexico .- The caravan of migrants who left Honduras a month ago continued to accelerate on Wednesday to reach the border with the United States, where some Central Americans have even momentarily pbaded, defying the presence of secretary of US Defense.

After having traveled more than 4,000,300 km on foot and hitchhiking, nearly 1,000 migrants arrived in the border town of Tijuana, in the state of Baja California: the first group formed was arrived on the weekend On a hundred transbaduals and some homobaduals, 350 other migrants arrived on Tuesday and Wednesday, a similar number, all members of the great caravan that left on October 13 from San Pedro Sula.

Excited, ran up to the Tijuana beach to bathe and put one's head between the metal bars of the border to see the destination of their dreams.

Two of them jumped the high fence and wrote: On the sand on the American side, the word "catracho", as it is commonly called in Honduras, returns after a few minutes in the territory Mexican.

The goal of the migrants is that the US government grants them refugee status because of the President's recent decree signed by President Donald Trump, the extreme violence and poverty that reign in their countries must be crossed by official access.

"I am excited about the desire to be here after going all over Mexico," said Lester Velazquez, 39, of Honduras, who is expected to work in the United States as a bricklayer, welder and barber.

Moving day and night

Meanwhile, in the neighboring state of Sonora, also on the border with the United States, the bulk of the caravan was making giant strides in organized buses by the civil society, in a journey without rest, day and night, which began Tuesday from Guadalajara.

Since then, they have not spent the night in camps, as they used to do, but on the highway.

Exhausted, but determined, more than 1,000 migrants spent this afternoon in Guaymas, a city in the northwest of the country. the Pacific coast, where drug trafficking and organized crime are proliferating.

"We are a machine, no one stops us!" Said Soyer Domínguez, a 32-year-old Guatemalan who showed his face and his tattooed arm from the window of the car. one of the 20 buses of his convoy.

Each bus, including some schoolchildren, carried about 40 migrants.

"We are blown away but hey," cried an old man with a white beard and wrinkled skin, writhing. in a rigid seat between two other pbadengers.

"They are fine, they do not show a greater physical affectation, they were hydrated and only complained because they no longer liked the food, they are already tired," said Edmundo Márquez of the protection of migrants from the Sonoran government.

Groups of "Catholics, Bus Owners and Civil Society Organized" "Offer fuel-filled vehicles and drivers who are ordered to travel to Tijuana," he explained.

Márquez was waiting for at least 2,000 migrants to pbad by Guaymas on Wednesday to go to the border.

Trump's obstacles [19659002] Facing the imminent arrival of the caravan , the United States partially close with barricades and barbed wire the border posts of San Ysidro and Otay Mesa, which lead to California.

And on November 9, Trump decrees the end of the Requests for asylum for those who enter in the United States illegally, with the aim of dissuading Central Americans from crossing the border

The President of the United States has described the migrants as "criminals" and accuses the caravan of promoting an "invasion". To contain it, he ordered the controversial dispatch of 9,000 soldiers to his southern border.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that this operation "is necessary" and "absolutely legal" during a visit to the troops deployed on the

"Trump can put what it is. he wants, but for God, there is no obstacle for us, "said Rivera, mason and driver in El Salvador.

Despite his faith, the priest Miguel Angel Soto, defender of migrants in Sinaloa, is less optimistic: "They are determined but will not happen, they will create a bottleneck in Tijuana and they are not ready to receive so many people. "

The caravan According to local authorities, 7,000 members joined the United Nations, but many fell on the road up to 6,000 11 (including 902 minors), arrived in Guadalajara.

In addition to Hondurans, migrants from Chile, Colombia and Colombia. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.

The first large caravan is followed by two others at a distance, with about 2,000 migrants each.