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By Delphine Schrank
ARRIAGA, Mexico (Reuters) – An American caravan of Central American migrants crossed southern Mexico on Saturday, despite government job offers, as authorities stepped up efforts to disperse the convoy that caused the violence. anger of US President Donald Trump.
The Mexican police in riot gear briefly blocked the march of men, women and children as they approached the state of Oaxaca before dawn, in order to relay the riot. Provision of temporary identity papers, jobs and education for asylum seekers in Mexico.
Trump has threatened to send troops to the US border and cut aid to Central America in an attempt to stop the group of several thousand people who have left Honduras there has two weeks.
Estimates vary considerably on the size of the group, which has evolved with the return of some migrants to their homes and the arrival of newcomers. At least 150 migrants traveling separately were arrested on Friday near the Guatemalan border, a Mexican official said.
According to the Mexican government, more than 1,700 people from the convoy applied for asylum, while others returned home. The Honduran ambassador said Friday that the group officially has 3,500 members. Other estimates go much higher.
On Saturday, more than 100 Honduran migrants chose to seek refugee status and participate in the temporary work program proposed by President Enrique Pena Nieto on Friday, said the National Institute of Migration of Mexico. Many others have rejected the offer.
"We are going to the United States because that is our dream," said the 28-year-old Honduran Daniel Leonel Esteves, at the head of a migrant column gathering some fifty people sneaking in on a road that leads to the hills.
Others have echoed his goal of crossing the border, declining Mexico's bid.
"Our destination is the United States," said migrant Francisco Ramirez.
A police official on a road just south of Oaxaca, where migrants are heading north from the city of Arriaga, in the state of Chiapas, said the authorities had reported Intend to continue to present the offer of asylum.
"We believe that it is very important that all members of the caravan know these benefits, so that they stop compromising their safety by crossing these roads," said Commissioner of the Federal Police, Benjamin Grajeda .
Trump and his Republican compatriots have sought to make the migrant caravan and immigration major stakes ahead of the November 6 elections, during which Republicans are fighting to keep control of Congress.
Honduras said that 4,500 of its citizens who had tried to emigrate had returned to the country in recent days.
(Daina Beth Solomon's writing, Orfa Mejia's additional report to Tegucigalpa, Chizu Nomiyama's edition)
