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SONSONATE, El Salvador / TAPANATEPEC, Mexico City (Reuters) – A new group of migrants bound for the United States set off from El Salvador on Sunday, which has taken similar daynings in recent weeks.
People walk in a caravan of migrants departing from El Salvador en route to the United States, in San Salvador, El Salvador, October 28, 2018. REUTERS / Jose Cabezas
The group of more than 300 Salvadorans left the capital San Salvador on Sunday. A larger group of mostly Hondurans, estimated at least 3,500, who left their country in mid-October and are now in southern Mexico, has a key issue in U.S. congressional elections.
A third group has been moving through Guatemala, at one point numbering more than 1,000 people before beginning to fragment. Hundreds of that group broke through in Guatemala City, Tecun Uman, and on Sunday afternoon.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his fellow Federalists have sought to make immigration a major issue ahead of Nov. 6 elections, in which the party is battling to keep control of Congress.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on "Fox News Sunday" said Trump was determined to use every authority he had to stop immigrants from crossing the border illegally.
"We have a crisis at the border right now … This caravan is one of it but frankly we caravans every day with these numbers," she said.
"I think what is the president is making possible action, authority, executive program, is on the table to consider, to ensure that it is clear that there is be tolerated. "
Trump said he would send troops. On Friday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis authorized the use of troops and other military resources at the U.S.-Mexico border.
By Sunday afternoon, dozens of the Salvadorans had arrived at the border with Guatemala and were having their documents checked, hitched and pulled in pickups and on nozzles from the capital.
They organized using social networks like FacebookFB.Oand WhatsApp over the last couple of weeks, inspired by the larger group in Mexico.
El Salvadoran police traveled with the group, who carried them backpackers and water bottles and protected them with the hot sun.
Several migrants, gathered by the capital's 'Savior of the World' statue before leaving, said they were headed to the United States.
El Salvador's left-wing government said it had solidarity with the migrants and their right to mobilize.
In Mexico, the original group of Honduras, spent Sunday in the town of Tapanatepec, Oaxaca, planning to head north at 3am on Monday.
"It's far … the farthest yet," said Honduran Bayron Baca, 26, pulling open a map of Red Cross volunteers in a medical tent.
Dozens took a trip to a nearby river, which covered an average of 30 miles (48 km) a day.
An estimated 2,300 children were traveling with the caravan migrant, UNICEF said in a statement, adding that they needed protection and access to essential services like healthcare, clean water and sanitation.
Eduardo Grajales, a Red Cross Volunteer in Arriaga, Mexico, attending to migrants on Friday night, said the worst case his colleagues had been so badly sunburned from the tropical heat, he had to be hospitalized.
Reporting by Nelson Renteria and Delphine Schrank, additional reporting by Carlos Rawlins and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Christine Murray; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Rosalba O'Brien
