| | | Caravan grows to 14,000 people: Report
Mexican police escorting migrants as they head north
washingtontimes.com
 Honduras migrants wait to be attended by Mexican migration authorities on a bridge that stretches over the Suchiate River, connecting Guatemala and Mexico, in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2018. Despite Mexican efforts to stop them at the border, ... more >
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Monday, October 22, 2018
Members of the illegal immigrant caravan chanted “si se pudo!” as they made their way north through Mexico Monday, having defied the will of one country and vowing to test the spine of another, the U.S., very soon.
The chant, which translates roughly as “Yes we could,” is a takeoff on the “Si se puede” — Yes we can! — cheer that immigrant-rights activists have used for years, and which the Obama campaign coopted in 2008.
Mexican police, who failed to stop them at that country’s border with Guatemala, now serve as escorts for the caravan as it barrels north, its members clear that they have no intention of staying in Mexico, and have eyes only for the U.S.
New estimates cited by El Universal, a Mexican newspaper, say the caravan now has 14,000 people, many of them already in Mexico while others still wait at the international border with Guatemala, in what has become a major humanitarian crisis.
Those massive numbers are proving to be a major test for the U.S. and Latin American governments, which all say they want the migrants to follow the laws and request entry to other countries through the usual channels.
Yet the vast majority of caravan members have other ideas.
They are pleading with Mexico not to deport them, insisting they’re just passing through.
One woman quoted by BBC, identified as Maria, walking with her husband and two children, said they are looking for work.
That would put them in the category of illegal migrants, not asylum-seekers. Yet many appear confident they can take advantage of lax U.S. laws to gain a foothold in the shadows.
President Trump, who’s been unable to win changes to U.S. laws, has pressured Honduras — the source of most of this caravan’s members — as well as Guatemala and Mexico, which the caravan must travel through to reach the U.S., to do more.
“Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S. We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them,” the president said on Twitter.
It’s not clear what he’ll be able to do.
Congress has appropriated tens of millions of dollars in American aid for each of those countries, and in draft spending bills has even raised the amount for 2019, compared to what Mr. Trump had requested. |
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