Central American migrants feel safer in a group

ARRIAGA, Mexico (AP) – Kenya, Yoselín Gutiérrez, had long been planning to emigrate from his native Honduras to the United States, but was discouraged to learn the stories of those who made the trip: migrants raped or missing, stolen children.

When he heard about the caravan thousands of people progressing in southern Mexico, he saw his luck. His 5 year old daughter, sister and niece joined him.

"It is not so easy to walk this road alone and with children," said the 23-year-old woman, sitting with her sister and daughters under a tarpaulin, near the city's main square. from Pijijiapan, in the state of Chiapas. southern Mexico. "Being accompanied is not so dangerous, it is not very easy for something to happen."

The tropical sun may be strong, the road is long and the Mexican authorities inefficient and even hostile, but many in the caravan say that traveling in groups helps to protect them from the dangers that threaten the northern route.

It is also a relatively inexpensive way to make this trip, as the intensification of US efforts to prevent illegal crossings at the border has pushed the price of smugglers to $ 12,000, amount that those fleeing poverty and violence can not pay.

At the same time, kidnappings and extortion of migrants have become an important affair for Mexican criminal organizations, particularly near the US border, further complicating the work of those trying to to cross by themselves.

The result has been the formation of caravans like this one and the emergence of a camaraderie amidst thousands of strangers who share a common story and purpose.

"We are from the same country," said Harlín Sandoval, who was waiting with several hundred other people outside Pijijiapan, in the hope that one of the trucks that will pass them would carry them. . "And I feel more protected."

On Friday, the caravan made its most ambitious journey in a day since the migrants entered Mexico a week ago: a 100km hike along the Pacific coast from Pijijiapan to Arriaga.

The size of the group has decreased considerably due to the exhaustion and illness: they take away about 4,000 out of the 7,000 who came. They are still 1,600 kilometers from the border crossing nearest McAllen, Texas, but the tour could be twice as long if the group decided to head to the border between Tijuana and San Diego, as another caravan had chosen at the beginning of the year. About 200 people from this group managed to reach the border.

Although these types of migrant caravans have been carried out regularly over time, passing almost unnoticed, they have received wide attention this year after US President Donald Trump has declared that he is safe. He opposed it totally.

The Pentagon on Friday approved a request to send additional troops to the southern border, probably several hundred, to help the border patrol as Trump tries to take advantage of the fears of immigrants and the caravan to turn them into gains election. the parliamentary elections of 6 November.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has approved the Homeland Security Department's request for help and military personnel authorized to determine details such as the size, composition and approximate cost of the sites, according to one official. Federal under the condition to keep the anonymity in order to be able to declare plans that have not been announced publicly.

Fearing for caravan and illegal immigration in order to encourage Republican voters, the president hinted that gang members and "Middle Eastern people" were mingling with the group, albeit with the exception of the US. he then acknowledged that he had no proof of it.

The Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced Friday the launch of the program "You are at home", which offers shelter, medical care, a school and a job to the Central Americans of the States of Chiapas and Oaxaca, in the south from the country, they ask for refuge. The president said that "this plan only addresses those who abide by Mexican laws" and that this is a first step towards permanent refugee status.

At night, in the central square of Arriaga, after completing their trip, the migrants rejected the proposal during a tumultuous oral vote. "Thank you!" They shouted, but "no, we're going north!"

A coordinator of the caravan announced that they would leave before dawn for Tapanatepec, about 46 km away, in the state of Oaxaca.

Even before the announcement, the authorities said more than 1,700 migrants had applied for refugee status, while hundreds of others had accepted free bus trips back to Honduras.

The Mexican government allowed the migrants to move forward, but did not provide them with food, shelter or bathrooms, reserving their help to those seeking refuge.

The police also forced migrants who paid bus tickets to get off, imposing a dark standard on road insurance, which made it more difficult for them to travel.

Authorities also focused on small groups trying to reach the main caravan, arresting some 300 Hondurans and Guatemalans while they were walking on a highway after illegally crossing the Mexican border, an official said. National Institute of Migration.

Migrants, who enter Mexico illegally every day, usually travel in trucks or smugglers' buses, or walk at night to avoid being spotted. The fact that this group is coming to light suggests that he was adopting the strategies of the caravan, which is big enough to walk openly without fear of mass arrests.

However, it seems that the immigration authorities will now stop small groups, which will prevent them from swelling the ranks of the caravan.

For Jenifer Ramírez, who travels with her 5-month-old daughter while her husband and two other children aged 3 and 5 are walking with them, the caravan was a stroke of luck.

Forced to leave Honduras in a hurry after her husband, a bus driver, was warned by members of a gang that he would be killed when he refused to carry drugs into his home. vehicle, the family was running out of money to pay a smuggler.

"As a group, we get help, they help us and everything else," said Ramírez, 24, referring to food and donations provided by local communities at each stop. "The one who does not take money receives food, clothes, instead of milestones to be able to continue".

Gutierrez, the young woman traveling with her daughter, sister and niece, said she had never slept in a park or on a sidewalk before. She hopes that all these deprivations will one day become "a beautiful memory" for her and her daughter if they manage to go to the United States.

"I would like her to remember that I am doing it to give her a better life, to give her good studies, to give her what I had never had in my childhood," she said. she said. "One day, she will have something of what I am doing … and that she will never be like me, emigrating elsewhere."