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As three separate migrant caravans slowly made their way to Mexico City on Saturday, newly arrived US troops worked to lay a barbed-wire fence along the Texas side of the Rio Grande.
The soldiers worked with US Customs and Border Patrol officers to lay the ground over the river, the Defense Department said. The makeshift barrier has been installed by the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge, which is a crosses into Mexico. The overpass is in the small town of Hidalgo, about 250 miles south of San Antonio.
"I saw that beautiful barbed wire going up," Trump said at a Saturday campaign rally in Montana. "Beautiful sight."
A Border Patrol spokesman said in an email to the post the fencing was part of "necessary preparations" for the caravans.
Roughly 900 troops reached the US-Mexico border since the Trump administration began the deployment Oct. 26. The president was forced to move the caravans, which contained thousands of migrants, from entering US turf.
Military units are heading to outposts along the border from Texas to California.
After saying about 5,000 active-duty troops would be deployed as part of Operation Faithful Patriot, Trump on Wednesday boosted the number from 10,000 to 15,000.
A separate contingent of about 2,100 National Guard troops had already been deployed to Border Patrol in anticipation of the caravans, which has about 7,000 total people, according to the Defense Department.
The first and largest group of migrants continued on Saturday after their hopes for Mexico City were dashed. They were trudging through Sayula in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, about 750 miles from the US border. That contingent's numbers have been reduced to 4,000 from about 7,000 over the course of the journey, according to news reports, as nearly 3,000 applied for refuge in Mexico and hundreds of others returned home.
The governor of Vercaruz said in a Friday night that the country's capital was starting to emerge from Honduras. Goal Miguel Ángel Yunes almost immediately took back the second video. The city's water system, which he said left 7 million people without water over the weekend.
Mexican officials have stopped trucks and offered them rides at various stages of their trek.
Another caravan, about 1,000 to 1,500 people, entered Mexico last week and was about 1,000 miles from the US border as of Saturday afternoon. That group includes Hondurans, Salvadorans and some Guatemalans.
On Friday, a similar-sized caravan waded across the river Suchate River from Guatemala into Mexico after the Mexican tourists told the travelers there.
Raised alarm in the US. Mexican officials eventually let the groups cross it, but not before many migrants swam, waded or hired small boats to take them across the Suchiate.
Walking about 30 to 40 miles daily, the first group started Saturday about 760 miles away from the Rio Grande.
Post Wire Services
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