Hundreds of US-Bound Migrants Storm Border, Rush into Mexico
In a chaotic scramble, Honduran migrants seeking to enter the U.S. illegally tried to cross into Mexico on Monday.
Mexican authorities used tear gas and troops in an effort to contain migrants who waded across the river separating Mexico and Guatemala in an effort to reach America’s southern border.
The day began with a caravan estimated to hold more than 4,000 migrants massed on a bridge spanning the river, to be met by Mexican officials who, as promised to President Donald Trump, would not allow them entry.
Shortly after noon, a group numbering in the hundreds then tried to wade across the knee-deep Suchiate River that separates the two countries.
As the migrants crossed, Mexican National Guard troops were there to meet them.
Many migrants successfully found their way around the troops, while others were blocked from entering Mexico by the guardsmen, some of whom were hit by rocks thrown by the migrants.
It was unclear at the end of the day how many migrants had successfully made it past the troops and into Mexico.
Many migrants remained at the edge of the river and some returned to Guatemala, according to The Associated Press.
#BREAKING Migrants from new caravan cross Suchiate river and have reached Mexico. pic.twitter.com/CKCdFqsATP
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) January 20, 2020
Find it weird how headlines read “Migrants clash with Mexican forces” in order to make Mexico look bad but in these videos the Mexican “National Guard” and a family are being attacked and they are literally shielding them from ppl of the Migrant Caravan throwing bottles at them pic.twitter.com/7Zxto1Aldw
— sit (@SitButAlsoStand) January 20, 2020
Mexico’s National Migration Institute told the migrants that it planned to send undocumented foreigners to immigration stations and then to their home countries if they were in Mexico illegally.
Reuters reported that many migrants who had crossed into Mexico were detained in a bus and several pickup trucks parked a couple of miles from the border.
Unlike with past caravans that traveled through Mexico, Mexican officials have said that they will not allow the caravan passage.
Leaders of the caravan wrote a letter to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asking that “all the members of the caravan receive the permission to move freely through Mexican territory. We are committed to you and your government to maintain order and discipline in the places where we transit,” according to The Washington Post
Mexico’s migration agency said in reply that it was “committed to maintaining a safe, orderly and regular migration.”
“The legal provisions do not allow for transitory migration,” the agency said.
Many migrants said they were not turning back.
“I never expected Mexico to react like this,” Brayan Hernandez, 26, who carried his 1-year-old, Daisy, said, according to NPR. “It makes me angry. We didn’t attack them.”
“Our goal is to go to the United States,” Hernandez added. “We aren’t turning around here.”
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