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Hundreds of Central American migrants staged a stormy demonstration on the US border with Mexico on Thursday. They urged President Donald Trump to let them in as American soldiers and riot police staged a show of force.
The heightened tension aroused by the presence of a migrant caravan of several thousand people appeared as Trump marked Thanksgiving day by threatening to close the border if he thought Mexico had lost the control.
The traffic of vehicles and pedestrians at the busy passage of San Ysidro stopped for 40 minutes as dozens of US policemen wearing helmets and guns formed a line facing the Mexican side of the border. Separately, the riot police repeated the deployment movements. US Customs and Border Protection has described this as a "large-scale preparation exercise."
US soldiers in khaki uniforms fired rockets that exploded with white smoke and odors. The helicopters flew over.
Trump has already deployed nearly 6,000 troops along the border and on Thursday he threatened to go even further.
"If we find that we are going to lose control or that people will start to get hurt, we will close the entry to the country for a while until we can control it," Trump said. . journalists, before issuing a warning in Mexico.
"The whole border, I mean the whole border," he said, adding that "Mexico will not be able to sell its cars in the United States."
At about the same time as the exercise of police and troops, at another neighboring border post called El Chaparral, Central American caravan migrants threw themselves in Tijuana defied the president with a violent gathering.
"Open the doors, Trump, we are not looking for war, but work," shouted 22-year-old Honduran Alberto Ruiz.
After a trip of more than a month from Honduras, nearly 5,000 migrants live in a makeshift shelter made from an outdoor sports arena. It was rainy Wednesday night, soaking their mattresses and other belongings.
"Let's go to the border, there we can put pressure on Trump, we are just wasting time and strength in the shelter," exclaimed Carlos Rodriguez, also a Honduran.
– & # 39; A special day & # 39; –
"Today is a special day, it's Thanksgiving in the United States, they will not lynch us," he said as the crowd cheered and shouted at him. l & # 39; support.
As night fell, dozens of migrants dragged their wet goods into the shelter and set up a new camp in the middle of a street near the El Chaparral crossing.
Authorities in Tijuana organized an employment fair with the aim of recruiting skilled workers among migrants for the benefit of local businesses, while the Mexican Migration Agency offered them papers temporary residence.
Some have taken advantage of the offers but others are simply determined to reach the United States.
Since they arrived more than a month ago, mainly from Honduras, thousands of migrants – many of them women and children – have traveled some 4,400 kilometers, either on foot or by hitchhiking, before the first groups do not begin to reach Tijuana at the end. last week.
However, tensions have existed since their arrival in the border town. Some residents fear crime and violence.
Migrants mainly flee poverty and unrest in the "North Triangle" of Central America – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where gang violence has fueled some of the highest murder rates in the world .
US border control officials are in training at a show of force as the mass of Central American migrants are on the other side of the border
Central American migrants are piling into an improvised shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, waiting for the crossing in the United States.
