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Posted at 15:59 ET 5 November 2018 |
Despite days of walking, sickness and uncertainty, Joel Eduardo Espinar, from Honduras, is determined to continue the difficult descent with his wife and children in a caravan of migrants from Mexico to the US border. . (November 2nd)
AP
Migrant groups at the Jesus Martinez Palillo Sports Club in Mexico City, Mexico, November 5, 2018. The caravan of Central Americans who entered Mexico on October 19 is regrouping in Mexico City the following days to decide whether to continue or not. . In the United States, said a Catholic priest and Mexican activist Alejandro Solalinde. EPA-EFE / Jose Mendez XMIT ORG: MEX01(Photo: Jose Mendez, EPA-EFE)
CÓRDOBA, Mexico – This weekend, Central American Americans headed north from a caravan and reached Mexico City, marking a new milestone in their winding odyssey to the US border while Americans are preparing to vote in an election in which migrants have become involuntary central characters.
The reception was warm in the Mexican capital, the local government having transformed a sports complex into a shelter that can accommodate more than 5,000 exhausted migrants, who for three weeks have endured foot pain, sickness and downpours, and survived through the cunning and generosity of modest Mexicans.
About 2,000 migrants arrived during the weekend, the others are expected to start on Monday. About 1,000 migrants who spent Sunday night in the coffee-producing city of Córdoba voted overwhelmingly at a general assembly to accelerate their step in the hope of reaching Mexico, about 190 kilometers from distance, at dusk.
Mexico City places migrants about 600 miles from the nearest US border crossing in Brownsville, Texas. But Denis Omar Contreras, a Honduran working with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a caravan-based migrant advocacy organization, said the group was likely heading to the California border, more than 1700 km away. This is the route taken by previous caravans to avoid the cartel-controlled territory of eastern Mexico.
The stop in Mexico City could be extended, as the caravan will regroup, members will follow more and more their list of medical problems and legal counsel will explain their options.
"We will have a place to rest up there," said Darby Flores, a 28-year-old Honduran from La Ceiba, on the Caribbean coast of the country. During the group's stay in Mexico City, he hoped that "they can provide us with a license to travel throughout Mexico".
About 2,793 members of the caravan have already accepted the offer of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to receive temporary work visas, health benefits and the opportunity to enroll their children in school , according to data released by the Mexican government on Nov. 3. That leaves about 5,347 migrants who refused, saying they want to try their luck in the United States, where they could earn in an hour what they would earn by working in Central America for a week.
Rodrigo Abeja, project coordinator in Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said consular representatives from Central America, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras would help replace ID documents and offer assistance. Lawyers will also provide legal advice on each person's options for asylum applications in Mexico or the United States.
The Mexico City government has also sent teams providing medical and legal assistance. One participant in the Mexico City relief program said that it was a matter of encouraging the participants of the caravan to stay on the spot rather than go to the US-Mexico border.
The Associated Press reported Monday that the Guatemalan and Honduran presidents had requested the opening of an investigation to identify the caravan organizers. President Donald Trump has put intense pressure on both countries to crack down on caravans.
Trump hammered the caravan as a central issue of the campaign for Tuesday's midterm elections. In recent weeks he has pledged to cut aid to Central American countries, has threatened to seal the US-Mexico border and has deployed more than 7,000 active-duty troops to the border, adding to the 2,000 national guards and the 16,500 border patrol officers already there.
Over the weekend, he cited the caravan throughout a series of campaign stops in hopes of marshalling its political base to counterbalance the optimistic predictions of Democrats in the elections.
"If the Democrats are elected … they want to make America a gigantic shrine city for violent predators and ruthless gang members," Trump told an audience Saturday in Pensacola, Florida. "We will keep criminals, drug traffickers, terrorists hell of our country".
While Trump depicted the caravan as a "national emergency" littered with gang members and violent criminals trying to illegally enter the United States, the latest caravan of migrants arriving at the US border earlier this year showed that most members have legally presented themselves at the points of entry requesting asylum.
This is the end goal of many members of the current caravan, which has crossed a dangerous stretch over the weekend in Veracruz, renowned for its crimes against migrants, such as kidnapping and extortion.
A group of nuns helping the caravan resorted to signaling vehicles for migrants on a stretch of isolated road crossing sugarcane fields and banana plantations, thinking that motorists would trust someone who wore a habit rather than being nauseated after weeks on the road. The villagers set up assistance stands along the route, offering food, drinks and clothes to the passing migrants.
"We can not complain," said Darby. "The Mexicans have helped us a lot."
The caravan is also a little fractured over the weekend, with some impatient participants preferring to run to Mexico rather than staying in the cities along the route, although it is likely to be reunited in the city. capital, where decisions will be made collectively on its way possible. to the US border.
"Our goal is to reach the United States and not spend too much time in one place," said María Elena Torres, 45, of Honduran origin, as she was climbing into a van with her three-year-old daughter for the trip to Mexico City. . "With the help of God, we will succeed."
Contributing Alan Gomez.
Read or share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/05/migrant-caravan-donald-trump-midterm-elections-central-america-honduras-immigration-us- Mexico-border / 1891225002 /
