Migrant Group in Tijuana Demands $50k Per Person from US
Two separate migrant caravan groups that made their way to the U.S.-Mexico border are making demands on the United States, with one insisting the government either let them into the country or give each migrant $50,000 for the journey home, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The Union-Tribune reported Tuesday that members of the caravan are pressing the United States to take action despite their dwindling numbers.
According to the report, one group of migrants demanded that “they be processed through the asylum system more quickly and in greater numbers, that deportations be halted and that President (Donald) Trump either let them into the country or pay them $50,000 each to go home.”
That first group arrived at the U.S. Consulate on Tuesday demanding the U.S. pay them the large sum of money within 72 hours.
The report said the group has not decided what they would do if their demands were not met.
“I don’t know, we will decide as a group,” one caravan organizer said.
The second group followed behind them a few hours later with a letter asking that the U.S. speed up the asylum process.
The Union-Tribune reported that the “group asked U.S. immigration officials to admit up to 300 asylum seekers at the San Ysidro Port of Entry each day.”
As of now, the U.S. is allowing between 40 and 100.
The letter also states, “In the meantime, families, women and children who have fled our countries continue to suffer and the civil society of Tijuana continue to be forces (sic) to confront this humanitarian crisis, a refugee crisis caused in great part by decades of U.S. intervention in Central America.”
While the caravan was around 6,000 members strong, the report said those numbers have decreased dramatically.
Around 700 have just voluntarily gone back to their home countries, according to The Union-Tribune, and around 300 members have been deported.
Additionally, a good 2,500 members of the caravan have applied for humanitarian visas to stay in Mexico, while about 3,500 are presumed to have made their way into the United States illegally or have simply gone missing.
When asked about the obscure, large sum of $50,000, one of the organizers of the caravan group, Alfonso Guerrero Ulloa, told The Union-Tribune that they “chose that number as a group.”
“It may seem like a lot of money to you,” he said, “but it is a small sum compared to everything the United States has stolen from Honduras.”
Ulloa also acknowledged that just getting to the U.S. consulate to make their demands was a moral victory.
“They received us at least,” he said. “It was nice to be treated with respect.”
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