Tag Archives: Honduran migrants

Central American migrants clash with Mexican forces

By Roberto Ramirez

SUCHIATE RIVER, Guatemala/Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican security forces fired tear gas at rock-hurling Central American migrants who waded across a river into Mexico earlier on Monday, in a chaotic scramble that saw mothers separated from their young children.

The clashes between hundreds of U.S.-bound Central Americans and the Mexican National Guard underscores the challenge President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador faces to contain migration at the bidding of his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump.

The mostly Honduran migrants numbered around 500, according to Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM). They were part of a group of several thousand people that had set off last week from Honduras, fleeing rampant gang violence and dire job prospects in their homeland.

Video footage showed scattered groups of migrants throwing rocks at a few members of the National Guard militarized police who were on the banks of the river attempting to thwart illegal crossings, while hundreds of others ran past into Mexico.

Five National Guard police were injured in the clashes, the INM said.

“We didn’t come to stay here. We just want to cross to the other side,” said Ingrid, 18, a Honduran migrant. “I don’t want to go back to my country because there is nothing there, just hunger.”

A Reuters witness spoke to at least two mothers whose young children went missing amid the chaos, as the migrants on Mexican soil scattered in an attempt to avoid being detained by Mexican officials.

The INM said it had detained 402 migrants and transferred them to immigration stations where they will receive food, water and shelter. The INM will return them to their home countries via airplane or bus if their legal status cannot be resolved.

A spokeswoman at the INM said the institute had no reports of children going missing amid the clashes.

The Reuters witness said that several kilometers from the border, Mexican immigration authorities had filled a bus and pickup trucks with detained migrants.

The Honduran Ambassador to Mexico, Alden Rivera, said that Mexican authorities have some 1,300 Hondurans in migration centers and will start deporting them back home by airplane and bus on Tuesday.

Trump has threatened to punish Mexico and Central American countries economically if they fail to curb migrant flows, resulting in a series of agreements aimed at making good on Trump campaign promises to curb immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

WADING ACROSS THE RIVER

Over the weekend, at least 2,000 migrants had been camped in the Guatemalan border town of Tecun Uman, opposite Ciudad Hidalgo on the Mexican side.

The migrants appeared to grow impatient on the bridge over the Suchiate River that connects the two countries, after some were denied permission to cross by assembled Mexican migration officials.

The INM said it informed the migrants it could not allow them to cross into Mexican territory to “transit” through and blamed the group’s organizers for “ignoring the risk to minors and at-risk people” by crossing the river.

Mexico has offered migrants work in the south, but those who do not accept it or seek asylum will not be issued safe conduct passes to the United States, and most will be deported, the interior ministry said.

Mexican authorities had already received nearly 1,100 migrants in the states of Chiapas and Tabasco, the ministry said on Sunday.

According to Guatemala, at least 4,000 people entered from Honduras since Wednesday, making for one of the biggest surges since three Central American governments signed agreements with the Trump administration obliging them to assume more of the responsibility for dealing with migrants.

(Reporting by Roberto Ramirez; Additional reporting by Dave Graham and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; Writing by David Alire Garcia and Anthony Esposito; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Christopher Cushing)

Second migrant caravan in Guatemala heads toward Mexico

Central American migrants queue at a border connecting Guatemala and Mexico while waiting to cross into Mexico, in Talisman, Mexico October 23, 2018. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

By Delphine Schrank and Sofia Menchu

TAPACHULA, Mexico/GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – A group of more than a thousand Central Americans in Guatemala headed toward the Mexican border on Tuesday as the first caravan of migrants paused in southern Mexico on its planned journey toward the U.S. border.

U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to begin cutting millions of dollars in aid to Central America and called the caravan in Mexico a national emergency as he seeks to boost his Republican Party’s chances in the Nov. 6 congressional elections.

The caravan, which has been estimated at 7,000 to 10,000 mostly Honduran migrants fleeing violence and poverty in their homelands, is currently in the town of Huixtla in Chiapas state around 31 miles (50 km) north of the Guatemalan border.

Mexico’s government said in a statement on Tuesday that it had received 1,699 requests for refugee status, including children. The government estimates there are around 4,500 people in the group.

Hundreds of migrants were resting in Huixtla on Tuesday, as religious groups and companies donated clothes. Local authorities provided vaccines, food and drink.

“When we heard the caravan was coming (we joined)…people in Guatemala are also suffering from poverty. So this is an opportunity to improve my family’s life,” said Elsa Romero, a Guatemalan mother of four.

Migrant Alexander Fernandez said the column planned to move again early on Wednesday morning.

Separately, Casa del Migrante, a migrant shelter in Guatemala City, said more than 1,000 people who set out from Honduras were moving through Guatemala toward the Mexican border. Some local media said there were more than 2,000.

Trump and fellow Republicans have sought to make the caravan and immigration issues in the election, which will determine whether their party keeps control of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.

Honduran authorities say that at least two men have died so far on Mexican roads during the advance of the caravan. One of the men fell off a truck in Mexico, and the other died trying to get onto a truck in Guatemala, authorities said.

The caravan in Mexico is still far from the United States border – more than 1,100 miles (1,800 km).

Mexico, which has refused Trump’s demands that it pay for a border wall between the countries, tries to walk a fine line between showing solidarity with the Central American migrants and responding to Washington’s demands to control its borders.

Mexico hopes to disperse the convoy long before it can reach the border, telling migrants to register with authorities in order to submit applications for asylum in Mexico.

That process can last weeks, and migrants are supposed to stay where they register while applications are processed. If they violate those rules, they face deportation.

(Reporting by Delphine Schrank and Sofia Menchu; editing by Grant McCool)