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MEXICALI, Mexico (Reuters) – Hundreds of migrants from a caravan of Central Americans were stranded on Saturday at the US-Mexico border, where a handful of people said they welcomed the recent job offers presented by Mexico faces a hostile American reception.
Private security guards stand guard at the Mexico-US border in Tijuana, Mexico on November 16, 2018. REUTERS / Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Last week, the Mexican government reiterated its job offers to migrants, claiming that those who would obtain legal status could fill thousands of vacant positions, most of them in the country's "maquiladoras" doing factory work.
Since arriving at the border last week, they have been denied entry through the door connecting Mexico to the United States.
Dozens of people, mostly Hondurans, were lining up for bathing and washing dirty clothes after 2,600 kilometers of relentless travel.
Several members of the caravan, which left the crime-ravaged city of San Pedro Sula (Honduras) on October 13, told Reuters that they would be willing to stay in Mexico rather than suffer the rejection of the crime. On the other side of the border.
"If we had work, we would stay. It has been very tiring, "said Orbelina Orellana, a 26-year-old Honduran mother of three, who was waiting at the Alfa and Omega shelter in the town of Mexicali, which borders Calexico, California.
"I'm crying a lot at not being able to feed them the way I want," Orellana said of her children. "I just want an opportunity."
Briefly blocked by Mexican riot police on a road crossing between two states in southern Mexico late last month, a dozen migrants told Reuters they rejected such offers, preferring to try their hand at luck in the United States.
But on Saturday, some said that thought had changed.
"We had the idea of crossing for the United States, but they told us it would be almost impossible," said Mayra Gonzalez, 32, traveling with her two children. "We can not starve while waiting to find out if they will give us asylum. Better to work, by the grace of God, here in Mexico. "
By drastically reversing long-standing American policy, the administration of President Donald Trump began last week to enforce new rules that restrict asylum rights for people who arrive undocumented at the US border.
Earlier this month, Trump deployed nearly 6,000 troops along the long US border with Mexico.
As they were heading north across Mexico, the migrants were helped by local authorities and locals who offered them food, clothes and even free walks on daily walks of life. an average of 30 km a day, much of it on foot.
But this reception became much colder when the caravan reached the border.
In Tijuana, a city long accustomed to a population of migrants in transit, deportees and Americans in search of pleasure, a handful of local residents threw stones at the migrants, asking them to return home.
But some said that Central Americans could help boost the local economy.
"We are not against migration," Reuters Ulises Araiza, president of the Association of Human Resources Industry in Tijuana, told Reuters.
"We know the situation these people face in their country. But we also promote order in order to integrate them into the work sector, because it is only in Tijuana that the maquiladora sector has a demand of 5,000 people. "
Writing by Delphine Schrank, edited by G Crosse
