Tag Archives: Guatemala

Migrants from caravan in limbo as U.S. says border crossing full

A group of members of a migrant caravan from Central America and their supporters look through the U.S.-Mexico border wall at Border Field State Park before making an asylum request in San Diego, California, April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Delphine Schrank

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – About 50 people from a Central American migrant caravan including women, children and transgender individuals tried to seek U.S. asylum on Sunday but were not allowed to cross the Mexico border because officials said the facility was full.

Wearing white arm-bands to distinguish themselves from others crossing at the San Ysidro checkpoint near San Diego, some of the asylum seekers waved good-bye to family members who made a difficult decision to stay behind in Mexico.

About 20 people in the group were able to reach the final fence at the busy crossing, where they were watched by armed U.S. border guards who did not immediately open the gate.

“We have reached capacity at the San Ysidro port of entry,” said Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan in a statement on Sunday, adding that the immigrants “may need to wait in Mexico.”

It was not immediately clear whether the group would be turned back or allowed in later. By sunset the tired migrants had decided to hunker down there, apparently with no bedding beyond the scant possessions they had with them.

Members of a caravan of migrants from Central America climb up the border fence between Mexico and the U.S., as a part of a demonstration prior to preparations for an asylum request in the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Members of a caravan of migrants from Central America climb up the border fence between Mexico and the U.S., as a part of a demonstration prior to preparations for an asylum request in the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

“We’ve been waiting so long that it doesn’t really matter whether it’s today, tomorrow or when they let us in,” said Irineo Mujica, director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an advocacy group that organized the caravan since its starting point in southern Mexico a month ago.

At one point in early April the caravan gathered 1,500 immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. It has drawn the wrath of President Donald Trump, who ordered immigration officials to be zealous in enforcing rules to stop unlawful entry by caravan members.

More migrants from the caravan, which numbered around 400 people by the time it reached Tijuana, also planned to seek asylum. About 100 set up an open air camp in a small square on the Mexican side by the San Ysidro pedestrian bridge, saying they would stay there until they were allowed through.

With no shelter, they laid out towels and blankets on the cold concrete.

“I’M NERVOUS. I’M AFRAID”

The mood was somber following a grueling 2,000-mile (3,200-km) trek to the border. U.S. immigration lawyers had warned the migrants of the low odds for winning asylum and the likelihood of detention, separation from relatives and deportation.

“I’m nervous. I’m afraid,” said Linda Sonigo, 40, walking solemnly toward the U.S. gate with her two-year-old granddaughter in her arms. “I’m afraid they’ll separate us,” she said, motioning to her two children and grandchild.

U.S. officials do not usually separate children from parents seeking asylum, although immigration advocates have reported instances of it happening. Families often spend less time in detention than other groups.

After U.S. border officials said the check point was full, organizers of the caravan put forward what they called the “most vulnerable cases” to cross the border first, including children under threat and transgender people who say they face persecution in Central America.

Sonigo said her family was fleeing gang violence in El Salvador. Others in the group who decided their cases were not strong enough to have a good shot at asylum tearfully said farewell to relatives they may not see again for years.

Asylum seekers must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution at home, and the overwhelming majority of those from Central America are denied refuge in the United States.

After making a claim, asylum seekers are usually kept in detention centers. Women with young children generally spend less time locked up and are released to await their hearings.

People in Mexico climb the border wall fence as a caravan of migrants and supporters reached the United States-Mexico border near San Diego, California, U.S., April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake

People in Mexico climb the border wall fence as a caravan of migrants and supporters reached the United States-Mexico border near San Diego, California, U.S., April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Those denied asylum are generally deported to their home countries.

Death threats from local gangs, the murder of family members, retaliatory rape and political persecution prompted members of the caravan to flee, members of the group have told Reuters.

McAleenan said the border patrol would communicate with Mexican authorities about capacity at San Ysidro, a move reminiscent of an ad hoc system created to manage an influx of Haitians two years ago, when the U.S. border agency set daily quotas for immigration interviews.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said earlier this week that the caravan migrants should seek asylum in Mexico.

U.S. border authorities said Saturday that some people associated with the caravan had already been caught trying to slip through the fence and encouraged the rest to report to authorities.

(Reporting by Delphine Schrank; writing by Frank Jack Daniel; editing by Phil Berlowitz, Cynthia Osterman and Darren Schuettler)

Some 200 migrants in Mexico caravan to seek U.S. asylum: organizers

Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, gesture as they arrive from Puebla city to La Casa del Peregrino, a temporary shelter set up for them by the Catholic church in Mexico City, Mexico April 9, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

By Delphine Schrank

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – At least 200 Central American migrants in a “caravan” traveling through Mexico that provoked the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump plan to seek asylum in the United States, organizers said on Monday.

After arriving in Mexico City on Monday, hundreds of migrants poured into the Basilica of Guadalupe, a Roman Catholic shrine, to give thanks, collect themselves or unleash emotions coiled tight during their long journey together from the southern border.

The number looking to claim U.S. asylum was more than double what organizers had anticipated, said Rodrigo Abeja, a coordinator from Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a transnational organization that staged the caravan.

Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, march from La Casa del Peregrino, a temporary shelter set up for them by the Catholic church, to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Mexico April 9, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, march from La Casa del Peregrino, a temporary shelter set up for them by the Catholic church, to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Mexico April 9, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

For many, the arduous trek to the capital began days or weeks before, each hinging on a personal decision to flee conditions too difficult to bear in El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras.

Barely across the cathedral’s threshold, dozens fell to their knees, heads bowing or eyes glistening as they gazed across the vaulted expanse and strained to hear a priest leading them in prayer.

Honduran Misael George beamed, grateful to have made it this far, and said that after the service he would meet with the other migrants who wanted to seek asylum in the United States.

With his three children and his wife, he went on the run from Honduras after a close relative was killed by a gang, and the threat spread to his family, he said. But with no proof on paper, he knew his odds for claiming asylum were long.

“Difficult, yes,” he said. “But not impossible.”

Trump last week lashed out at the caravan, accusing Mexico of failing to stop illegal immigrants headed to the border.

Manuel de Jesus Rodas, 27, from Honduras, daubed his tears with a tissue but could not staunch the emotion that choked his voice. His mother had just told him to come home, he said, because she was sick and in pain.

Now he waited for guidance about whether to go home – or go on. “I don’t know, but I think I have to follow my route,” he said.

Others in the caravan said they would stay in Mexico.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Mexico vets and disperses Central American migrant ‘caravan’

Central American migrants receive donated clothes as they take a break from traveling in their caravan, on their journey to the U.S., in Matias Romero, Oaxaca, Mexico April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Romero

By Delphine Schrank

MATIAS ROMERO, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican officials on Tuesday screened a dwindling group of hundreds of largely Central American migrants who are moving through Mexico toward the United States, seeking to break up the “caravan” that has drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump, doubling down on his tough stance against illegal immigration, has railed against those making their way from the Guatemala-Mexico border in the past 10 days.

Trump repeated threats to torpedo the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which underpins much of Mexico’s foreign trade, and said he wanted to send troops to the U.S. border to stop illegal immigrants until a long-promised border wall is built.

In response, the Mexican government has said the migrants are being vetted to determine whether they have a right to stay, or would be returned to their countries of origin.

Hundreds of men, women and children from Central America were stuck on Tuesday in the town of Matias Romero in the poor southern Mexican state of Oaxaca awaiting clarification of their legal status after officials began registering them.

Confused and frustrated by paperwork, many were uncertain what lay in store, and desperate for information.

“What was the point of all this then if they don’t let us stay?” Elizabeth Avalos, 23, a migrant from El Salvador who was traveling with two children, said angrily. “There’s no food, my children haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

Hundreds of people camped out overnight in a park near the town’s train station, with shoes and bags strewn about.

Jaime Alexander Variega, 35, sat alone in a patch of shade and cupped his head in his hands, weeping or praying, his feet still bearing lacerations from walking for four or five days straight through Guatemala from El Salvador.

“We’re not safe in El Salvador,” said the former security guard, his hat smeared in dirt, explaining he had left his home because of the threats from local gangs. “I know it’s difficult to get into the United States. But it’s not impossible.”

Around them, Mexican migration officials with notepads and pens took basic information from the migrants, asking for names, nationalities, dates of birth and proof of identity.

The caravan was organized by U.S-based advocacy group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which seeks to draw attention to the rights of migrants and provide them with aid. The Mexican government says the caravan, which like others travels by road, rail and on foot, has been organized every year since 2010.

Honduran Carlos Ricardo Ellis Garcia clutched a handwritten list of names belonging to more than 100 people who joined the caravan in the southern border town of Tapachula, where it began on March 25, reaching a peak of around 1,500 people.

But by Tuesday the number was down to about 1,100, according to Pueblo Sin Fronteras spokeswoman Gina Garibo.

Many had broken off from the group, eager to move on more quickly, she said. Many others aimed to stay in Mexico because they had family ties there or planned to work, Garibo said.

“Now they’re separating these groups,” Ellis Garcia said, referring to an estimated 300 people who split from the caravan on Monday. “I don’t know what’s the deal, we have no answers.”

Advocacy groups told Reuters dozens of people left the caravan and traveled to the crime-ridden eastern state of Veracruz, where they were met by migration officials and police.

The government said on Monday evening around 400 people in the caravan had already been sent back to their home countries.

Geronimo Gutierrez, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, told CNN that Mexican authorities were “looking at the status of the individuals so we can proceed either with a repatriation process” or offer humanitarian relief. That could include granting asylum or humanitarian visas.

Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are among the most violent and impoverished countries in the Americas, prompting many people to leave in search of a better life.

Trump, who ran for office in 2016 on a platform to stem illegal immigrants from Mexico, said he had “told Mexico” he hoped it would halt the caravan.

The migrant caravan also poses a political problem for Mexico’s unpopular government in a presidential election year.

President Enrique Pena Nieto is barred by law from seeking re-election in the July 1 vote, but the ruling party candidate is running third, well behind the front-runner.

The government does not want to be seen as kowtowing to threats by Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Mexico.

In a country where millions of people have friends or relatives who have migrated legally or illegally to the United States, many Mexicans harbor sympathy for the Central Americans.

(Reporting by Delphine Schrank; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz, Diego Ore and Daina Solomon; Editing by Dave Graham and Grant McCool)

‘God bless you’, Netanyahu tells Guatemalan president over Jerusalem embassy move

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands as they deliver statements to the media during their meeting in Jerusalem November 29, 2016.

JERUSALEM/GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Guatemala with a “God bless you” on Monday for deciding to move its embassy to Jerusalem, while the Palestinians said the Central American country was “on the wrong side of history”.

In an official Facebook post on Sunday, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said he had chosen to relocate the embassy from Tel Aviv – siding with the United States in a dispute over Jerusalem’s status – after talking to Netanyahu. [L1N1OO0F7]

U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Dec. 6, reversing decades of U.S. policy and upsetting the Arab world and Western allies.

On Thursday, 128 countries rebuked Trump by backing a non-binding U.N. General Assembly resolution calling on the United States to drop its recognition of Jerusalem.

“God bless you, my friend, President Jimmy Morales, God bless both our countries, Israel and Guatemala,” Netanyahu said, switching to English, in remarks to a weekly meeting of his Likud party faction in parliament.

Guatemala and neighboring Honduras were two of only a handful of countries to join Israel and the United States, which has pledged to move its embassy to Jerusalem, in voting against the U.N. resolution.

The United States is an important source of assistance to Guatemala and Honduras, and Trump had threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that supported the U.N. resolution.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest obstacles to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they want to establish in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the entire city, home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki as saying that Morales was “dragging his country to the wrong side of history by committing a flagrant violation of international law”.

Prior to 1980, Guatemala – along with Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, The Netherlands, Panama, Venezuela and Uruguay – maintained an embassy in Jerusalem.

Israel’s passage in June 1980 of a law proclaiming Jerusalem its “indivisible and eternal capital” led to a U.N. Security Council resolution calling upon those countries to move their embassies to Tel Aviv, prompting their transfer.

Israel’s ambassador to Guatemala, Matty Cohen, said on Army Radio that no date had been set for the embassy move, “but it will happen after” the United States relocates its own embassy to Jerusalem. U.S. officials have said that move could take at least two years.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem and Bill Barreto in Guatemala City; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Edmund Blair)

Guatemala blocks entry to Dutch ship providing abortions

Members of Women on Waves, a Dutch non-profit that provides abortion services beyond the territorial waters of countries where abortion is illegal, are seen on their ship at a pier in Puerto de San Jose, Guatemala February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Luis Echeverria

PORT OF SAN JOSE, Guatemala (Reuters) – Guatemala’s army detained a boat carrying a supply of abortion pills on Thursday and prevented it from picking up women seeking to end their pregnancies, saying the move was prohibited by the country’s constitution.

The boat, operated by Dutch nonprofit Women on Waves, was in military custody with some of its seven crew members still aboard, after landing at a private pier at the Port of San Jose, 75 miles (120 km) south of the capital, said Leticia Zenevich, a spokeswoman for the group.

The organization provides free abortion services for women pregnant up to 10 weeks, beyond the territorial waters of countries where abortion is illegal.

The abortion pill – also known as a medication abortion — combines two medicines, mifepristone and misoprostol, to end a pregnancy. It is more than 90 percent effective for women up to 10 weeks pregnant.

In a statement, the Guatemalan army said that it would not allow the nonprofit to carry out its activities, in adherence “to the Constitution regarding the preservation of human life and the laws in effect in our country.”

The trip was the first made by the organization since Morocco blocked a ship from entering one of its harbors in 2012, Zenevich said.

Marleny Arias, a 50-year-old Guatemalan, heckled the ship’s crew, yelling: “Why don’t you go to the Netherlands to kill children?”

Group organizers defended the legality of the ship’s operation, which picks up women on shore and brings them to international waters where local laws do not apply.

On board, women are given an abortion pill and remain under observation for a few hours before returning to land.

“Guatemala has been chosen because the laws are very restrictive on the subject of abortion,” said Quetzali Cerezo, director of Women in Equity in Guatemala, which helps the Dutch nonprofit.

In Guatemala, where Catholic and Evangelical churches hold powerful influence, abortions are only permitted if a mother’s life is at risk.

According to the organization, which was founded in 1999, some 65,000 illegal abortions are performed annually in the Latin American country.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Natalie Schachar; Editing by Bill Rigby)

Mexico buckles under migrant surge to U.S.

A resident walks by a section of the border fence between Mexico and the United States on the outskirts of Tijuana

By Gabriel Stargardter and Julia Edwards

TAPACHULA, Mexico/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Mexico is struggling to stem the flow of Central American migrants traveling to the United States ahead of the U.S. presidential election, causing major concern in Washington, which is weighing sending more agents to help.

In 2014, Mexico moved to strengthen its southern border when a surge in child migrants from Central America sparked a political crisis in the United States.

Last year, Mexico detained over 190,000 migrants, more than double the number in 2012.

But official data examined by Reuters shows that fewer migrants have been captured in Mexico this year even as the number caught on the U.S. border has soared.

The slowdown in detentions on Mexican soil is frustrating U.S. officials who feel that Mexico could be doing more, according to a source familiar with internal briefings on the topic at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Illegal immigration is stoking a fierce debate ahead of the U.S. election on Nov. 8 with Republican candidate Donald Trump vowing to deport millions of people and build a wall along the Mexican border if elected president.

Mexico says its National Migration Institute (INM), which regulates migration in the country, is already working flat out to contain the problem, but it has a fraction of the resources that U.S. agencies have.

“We’re at the limit of our resources,” Humberto Roque Villanueva, Mexico’s deputy interior minister responsible for migration, told Reuters.

The number of families stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border jumped 122 percent between October 2015 and April 2016 from the same period a year earlier, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The number of detained “unaccompanied minors” – children traveling without relatives – was 74 percent higher. Most of the Central Americans come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Despite those increases, fewer migrants are being caught as they move through Mexico. Over the same period, Mexico detained and deported about 5 percent fewer people than in 2014/15. So far this year, 3.5 percent fewer unaccompanied minors have been stopped.

The DHS is considering sending more agents south to train Mexican officials on how to track human traffickers and stop migrants crossing the Mexico-Guatemala border, according to an internal briefing document obtained by Reuters.

U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, who sits on the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said DHS officials told him they hope to help Mexico strengthen its southern border.

“When you’re constantly working at full speed and don’t have all the resources because your primary mission is to fight the drug cartels, yeah, you’re going to be stretched,” Cuellar said.

DHS spokesman Daniel Hetlage declined to say whether it aimed to send more officers to work with the INM, but said the DHS and CBP have an “excellent” relationship with the INM and Mexico’s government.

Roque Villanueva attributed the migrant surge to people finding new routes past checkpoints. He said he was unaware of any U.S. plan to send reinforcements, and that there are already U.S. agents at Mexico’s southern border, albeit only for training.

LEAKY BORDER

In 2014, Mexico launched the “Plan Frontera Sur” to tighten border controls, register migrants and stop them using the perilous network of trains known as “La Bestia”, or “The Beast”.

But migrants quickly adapted.

Elisabel Enriquez, Guatemala’s vice-consul in Tapachula, said migrant smugglers now rent trucks and shuttling migrants from southern Mexico all the way to the U.S. border over 2,000 km away for up to $8,000 per person.

Two such trucks were stopped in recent weeks, she said, one stuffed with about 115 migrants and the other about 60.

Some migrants immediately apply for asylum on arrival in Mexico. Once granted a refugee visa, they can travel through Mexico without fear of being deported, said Irmgard Pund, who runs the local Belen migrant shelter.

So far this year, asylum applications with Mexican refugee agency COMAR are up over 150 percent compared with 2015, and could reach 10,000 by the end of the year, said Perrine Leclerc, head of the Tapachula field office for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The rise in families heading north is partly due to a 2015 U.S federal court decision limiting the time mothers and children can be held in detention, which has created the mistaken impression they can stay in the United States, U.S. officials say.

A regional drought in Central America has also increased pressure to leave, while some migrants are trying to cross ahead of the election in case Trump wins and follows through on his campaign promises, making it more difficult for them in the future.

Compared to their U.S. counterparts, Mexico’s migration authorities get by on a shoestring. The INM spent 4.14 billion pesos ($228.37 million) in 2015, less than 2 percent of the CBP’s budget request for 2016.

The United States has tripled its border force under President Barack Obama to 60,000 staff, while the INM has 5,383 employees.

Roque Villanueva said the fall in the price of oil, which funds about a fifth of Mexico’s federal budget, makes it even harder to put new resources into the INM.

Nonetheless, he said Mexico and the United States would continue to work closely together as Washington has plenty of reasons for wanting a robust southern Mexican border.

“The Americans are not so worried by how many Central Americans get through, but rather about making sure nobody with even the slightest chance of being a terrorist does,” he said.

($1 = 18.1287 pesos)

(Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Kieran Murray and Ross Colvin)

Guatemalan Mudslide Kills 237; Death Toll Expected to Rise

Recovery after the Guatemalan Mudslide that erased part of  the town of Santa Catarina Pinula last week has uncovered 237 bodies so far from the mountains of mud and debris in the mudslide created from heavy rainfall.

Backhoes continued to remove thousands of tons of dirt from the acres-wide mudflow in the neighborhood of Cambray, on the outskirts of Guatemala City, with very little hope of finding anyone alive.

Officials have reported that many other people are still missing.  

Several hundred people were being housed in shelters run by the local government National Disaster Reduction Commission known as Conred.

The agency has said it issued a number of warnings about the dangers of living on the base of this mountain area. Officials this week declared the area uninhabitable.

Manuel Pocasangre, the communications director for the municipality of Santa Catarina Pinula said state employees in recent years had gone door-to-door to talk to people about the risks of where they lived even in the last year.  

Stating that he had warned Mayor Tono Coro of the municipality of Santa Catarina Pinula that the river was eating away at the base of the steep hill. “What we know is that people were conscious about the risk they were taking,” Pocasangre said Wednesday.  

Maldonado acknowledged there are many neighborhoods like Cambray in and around Guatemala City that are at risk of flooding or mudslides

The country’s prosecutor’s office has announced an investigation of the matter.

Massive Earthquake Shakes Mexico and Guatemala

A major earthquake woke up Mexico and Guatemala Monday morning, leaving at least four people dead.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck around 6:23 a.m. local time on the Pacific Coast about a mile from Puerto Madero on the Guatemalan border.  The quake was initially measured at 7.1 but reduced to 6.9.

Two people died in the Guatemalan town of Pati when their home collapsed on them.  A third was confirmed dead from a heart attack brought on by the stress of the quake.  A wall in Huixtla crushed a man when a building collapsed.

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina said on the radio that a newborn was killed when hit by a collapsing wall but emergency personnel did not confirm it.

Massive power outages have left most of Guatemala without electricity.  Early reports had hundreds of homes with significant damage and utility poles down for hundreds of miles.