Reality installs for the caravan's migrants

TIJUANA, Mexico – He was running a product stand in Honduras, but Richard Umanzor said he was ready to accept all the available works, no matter which country he would be allowed to enter.

He and more than 2,000 other migrants who have arrived in this border town in recent days can see California with their own eyes. But they are starting to realize that they could never get there.

"We all came here to look for the US, but now we can see how complicated it is," said Umanzor, 26, in a migrant camp turned into a migrant camp. located one block from the security fence. "If we can not go to the United States, why not Canada? Europe? Wherever we can find a worthy job. "

Thousands of other migrants – members of caravans who started leaving Honduras a few weeks ago – are expected to arrive in Tijuana in the days and weeks ahead, with no place to go.

The city of 1.6 million residents was caught off guard by the sudden influx, raising concern among officials and locals as to how they will accommodate newcomers. The shelter handle normally sleeps no more than 100 people.

In an interview with Milenio newspaper, Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum said that the arriving migrants included a significant criminal element and represented a major burden for the city.

"We do not want them to bother (our) citizens," said Gastelum, who added that he was planning to hold a referendum to help decide on the future of migrants. "Tijuana is a city of migrants, but not that way."

Migrants could remain stranded here for months, said Genaro Lopez Moreno, a municipal delegate from downtown Tijuana, who was involved in coordinating aid.

"No city in the world can not help but help as many people at once," he said. "We are doing our best, but it's a lot to handle at the same time."

Tijuana officials had sought the help of the central government in Mexico City.

Migrants are hungry and tired after traveling about 3000 km. Now that they are so close to the US border, they are trying to determine their next move.

On Friday, no concerted effort was made to file claims for political asylum in the United States. The Trump administration warned that applicants would likely face long waits in detention and that they would have little chance of obtaining legal residency.

The exhilarating sensation of finally reaching the border seems to be fading quickly for a group that managed to enter Mexico illegally with relative ease a few weeks ago, riding on makeshift rafts crossing the border. river from Guatemala.

The US border is much larger. Border patrol officers aboard vehicles, on horseback and on foot, look south with binoculars. Layers of fences rise and fall on the hills to the east and west of the official passages. Reels of razor wire line the tops of the fence.

"Many of them thought it was going to look like the border between Mexico and Guatemala," said Lopez Moreno. "Now, they realize that it is something quite different."

The organizers of the caravan organized a kind of motivation rally on Friday at the sports center, urging migrants to keep their wits.

"Do not be frustrated!" Irineo Mujica of the Migrant Defense Group Pueblo Sin Fronteras called for an assembly on a football pitch. "We have to think beyond the United States."

The migrants applauded when he asked them if they planned to move to Canada, Germany, France or elsewhere in Europe – or even stay in Tijuana and work in its many assembly plants. There were fanciful discussions about possible visas and work permits.

"There are a lot of possibilities," Mujica said, although he acknowledged in an interview outside the camp that no visas from anywhere in the world 39 was guaranteed at this stage.

Later, several evangelical pastors asked migrants to join in prayer for a successful final of their journey.

For weeks, as migrants progressed through the sweltering tropics, rugged mountains and endless expanses of the desert, their destination was always clear.

Many Mexican families in Tijuana donated food and expressed solidarity with the migrants.

But not everyone is so much the city has been so welcoming.

In the upscale neighborhood of Playas de Tijuana, locals objected to migrants gathering along the beach, resulting in fights and police intervention.

Many ended up at the sports center, where more than 2,000 migrants spent the night from Thursday to Thursday. But no one in the group seems to know what will be the next move.

"We are here now and we still want to go to the United States," said Rosa Perez, a 30-year-old single mother who traveled with her four children. "But how are we going to cross, I do not know."

His five-month-old son, Esteven, who had been hospitalized for pneumonia in Guadalajara, Mexico, smiled smiling. While Esteven was sitting in his stroller, his other children were playing on swings.

Perez said that she would not be a burden in the United States or anywhere else. Like others, she said it was not possible to return to Honduras, a poor and crime-ridden country.

On a basketball court where many migrants were sleeping on mats, three young friends filled generic job applications purchased at a stationery store. The fact that they do not have working papers for Mexico does not seem to deter them.

Israel Ramirez, 24, said he was a farmer in his country but that he was willing to work in restaurants, factories or wherever he could make a living.

"If we can not enter the United States, we may be able to find work here in Mexico," he said. "It's even better than going back to Honduras."

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