The migrant caravan is reforming in Mexico, with members pledging to reach the United States

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico – Despite the Mexican efforts to stop them at the border, about 2,000 Central American migrants swam or crossed a river separating that country from Guatemala, reformed their mass caravan in Mexico and promised to resume their journey to the United States.

The migrants, who said they gave up attempting to enter Mexico legally because the asylum application process was too slow, started leaving the border town of Ciudad Hidalgo on Sunday morning at 10 am to head straight to their next stop: the city of Tapachula. .

The caravan's staff swelled in one night to about 5,000 people. This is not immediately obvious from where the extra travelers come from. But last spring, during a caravan, many migrants who worked and lived on the border between Guatemala and Mexico decided to join the caravan after it passed because it was safer to travel together.

A group met on Saturday in a park in the border town of Ciudad Hidalgo and voted by show of hands to continue en masse in the north, then headed to the bridge crossing the Suchiate river and invited those who were still there to join them.

"We are going to reach the United States," said Erasmo Duarte, a migrant from Danli, Honduras, despite warnings to turn around this week on the part of President Trump, who was seeking to ensure the safety of the caravan and borders in a campaign number United States before mid-term elections in November.

The decision to reform the migrant caravan put an end to a day in which the Mexican authorities again refused the massive influx of migrants on the bridge, instead accepting small groups for the treatment of migrants. asylum and giving residence permits of 45 days to some. The authorities have distributed numbers for the treatment of persons in a strategy already seen at US border posts when there were large numbers of migrants.

But many became impatient and skirted the border gate, crossing the river by rafting, swimming or strolling in front of the hundreds of Mexican policemen who controlled the blockade on the bridge. Some paid the equivalent of $ 1.25 to the locals to get them through muddy waters. They were not arrested when they reached the Mexican bank.

"We could not wait because we had already waited too long and they only told us lies," said Duarte, who joined the caravan with his wife and children six days ago.

Sairy Bueso, a 24-year-old mother of two from Honduras, is another migrant woman who abandoned the bridge and entered Mexico by the river. She was clinging to her 2-year-old daughter, Dayani, who had just had her heart operated while descending from a raft.

"The girl has suffered a lot because of all the people gathered" on the bridge, said Bueso. "There are risks that we must take for the sake of our children."

Group leaders said the caravan, which would be smaller than the original car, would be scheduled for Sunday morning for the city of Tapachula.

Where 3,000 people were on the bridge the day before, the crowd was considerably weaker on Saturday. In addition to the people who crossed the river, the immigration agents treated the migrants in small groups and then took them by bus to Tapachula, an open air park with metal roof, where the Red Cross has installed small blue tents on the concrete floor.

Whenever a small side door opened to allow people to go for treatment, there was a body crush while the migrants were desperately pushing forward. Scarleth Cruz placed over the crowd a crying little girl drenched with sweat, crying, "This girl is suffocating."

Cruz, 20, said she was going to apply for political asylum because of the threats and repression she had suffered in Honduras by President Juan Orlando Hernandez 's ruling party.

"Why would I want to go to the United States if I'm going to be persecuted" there too, she said.

The Ministry of the Interior of Mexico said that it had received 640 asylum applications from Hondurans at the border post. He has published photos of migrants leaving a bus in a shelter and receiving food and medical care.

At least half a dozen migrants fainted.

Some tore up a fence on the Guatemalan side of the bridge and threw two young children, maybe 6 or 7 years old, and their mother in muddy waters about 20 meters deep. They were driven to safety on the Mexican bank.

Mexican workers handed over food and bottled water to the migrants on the bridge. Through the bars, a doctor treated a woman who feared that her young son had a fever.

Guatemalans also benefited from this support – for 24-year-old Carlos Martinez from Santa Barbara, Honduras, the plate of chicken with rice was the first bite of his day.

"It's a blessing that they have given us to eat," Martinez said. "It gives me the courage to keep waiting, as long as I can."

Migrants cited widespread poverty and gang violence in Honduras, one of the world's deadliest countries in terms of homicide rates, as being the reasons they joined the caravan.

"You can not live there," said Fidelina Vasquez, a grandmother traveling with her daughter and 2-year-old grandson, standing near the main gate of the border.

The caravan sparked a series of angry tweets and warnings from Mr. Trump earlier this week, but Mexico's treatment of migrants on the southern border seems to have satisfied him more recently. .

"So, from that moment, I thank Mexico," Mr. Trump said Friday at an event in Scottsdale, Arizona. "I hope that they will continue, but from that moment I thank Mexico, if it does not work, we call the army – not the guard."

"They are not going to this country," Trump added.

"The Mexican government is fully committed to finding a solution that promotes safe, secure and orderly migration," state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Saturday, "and the United States and Mexico continue to collaborate with Central American governments on the security and governance factors of illegal immigration. "

After an emergency meeting in Guatemala, Hernandez Presidents of Honduras and Jimmy Morales of Guatemala said that about 5,400 migrants had entered Guatemala since the announcement of the caravan announced a week ago. and that about 2,000 Hondurans have returned voluntarily.

Morales said that a Honduran migrant had died in the town of Villa Nueva, 30 km from Guatemala City, when he fell off a truck.

Some Hondurans were tired of the trip and disappointed with the violence at the crossing and just wanted to go home.

"We thought the caravan was passive but there were unruly people, I was disappointed," said Gonzalo Martinez, a 37-year-old farmer, while he was boarding a bus to Tecun Uman, in Guatemala, to bring him back to Honduras.