By SONIA PEREZ D. and MARK STEVENSON
Honduran
migrants taking part in a caravan heading to the US arrive at a border crossing
point with Mexico in Ciudad Tecun Uman, Guatemala on October 19, 2018 (AFP
Photo/ORLANDO SIERRA)
TECUN UMAN, Guatemala (AP) — Migrants traveling in a mass
caravan burst through a Guatemalan border fence and streamed by the thousands
toward Mexican territory on Friday, defying Mexican authorities’ entreaties for
an orderly crossing and U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of retaliation.
On the Mexican side of a border bridge, they were met by
a phalanx of police with riot shields. About 50 managed to push their way
through before officers unleashed pepper spray and the rest retreated.
The gates were closed again, and police used a
loudspeaker to address the masses, saying, “We need you to stop the
aggression.”
Mexican federal police chief Manelich Castilla, speaking
from the border town of Ciudad Hidalgo, told Foro TV that his forces achieved
their main objective of preventing a violent breach by the 3,000-plus migrants.
In a separate interview with Milenio television, he accused people not part of
the caravan of attacking police with firecrackers and rocks.
“It will be under the conditions that have been said
since the start,” Castilla said. “Orderly, with established procedures, never
through violence or force as a group of people attempted.”
The chaos calmed somewhat as migrants formed lines in a
mass of humanity stretching across the bridge. Some returned to the Guatemalan
side to buy water and food.
But others, tired of waiting, jumped off the bridge into
the Suchiate River. Migrants organized a rope brigade to ford its muddy waters,
and some floated across on rafts operated by local residents who usually charge
a dollar or two to make the crossing.
Cristian, a 34-year-old cell phone repairman from San
Pedro Sula, said he left Honduras because gang members had demanded protection
payments of $83 a month, a fifth of his income.
It was already hard enough to
support his four daughters on the $450 he makes, so he closed his small
business instead.
Cristian, who declined to give his last name because the
gangsters had threatened him, estimated that about 30 percent of the migrants
want to apply for refugee status in Mexico, while the rest want to reach the
United States.
“I want to get to the States to contribute to that
country,” Cristian said, “to do any kind of work, picking up garbage.”
Police and immigration agents let small groups of 10, 20,
30 people through the gates if they wanted to apply for refugee status. Once
they file a claim, they can go to a shelter to spend the night.
Eric Lagos Rodriguez from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran
capital, and his family turned themselves over to authorities to apply.
“We couldn’t go on like this,” Lagos said, “we’re
traveling with six children.”
As dusk neared, police were relieved by fresh officers
and reformed ranks.
Migrants continued to hang on the gates, yelling “there are
children here” and “we are hungry.”
Back on the Guatemalan side, some people
set up tarp shelters.
Earlier in the day, thousands of migrants, some waving
Honduran flags and carrying umbrellas to protect against the sun, arrived at
the Guatemalan side of the river, noisily demanding they be allowed to cross.
“One way or another, we will pass,” they chanted,
climbing atop U.S.-donated military jeeps parked at the scene. Young men tugged
on the fence, finally tearing it down, prompting the huge crowd of men, women
and children to rush past and over the bridge.
Edwin Santos of San Pedro Sula was one of the first to
race by, clutching the hands of his father and wife.
“We are going to the United States!” he shouted. “Nobody
is going to stop us!”
Acner Adolfo Rodriguez, 30, one of the last through, said
he hoped to find work and a better life far from the widespread poverty and
gang violence in Honduras, one of the world’s deadliest countries.
“May Trump’s heart be touched so he lets us through,”
Rodriguez said.
President Donald Trump has made it clear to Mexico that he is
monitoring its response. On Thursday he threatened to close the U.S. border if
Mexico didn’t stop the caravan. Later that day he tweeted a video of Mexican
federal police deploying at the Guatemalan border and wrote: “Thank you Mexico,
we look forward to working with you!”
Mexican officials said those with passports and valid
visas — only a tiny minority of those trying to cross — would be let in
immediately.
Migrants who want to apply for refuge in Mexico were
welcome to do so, they said, but any who decide to cross illegally and are
caught will be detained and deported.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Friday with
President Enrique Pena Nieto and Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray in
Mexico City, with the caravan high on the agenda.
At a news conference with Videgaray, Pompeo called
illegal migration a “crisis” and emphasized “the importance of stopping this
flow before it reaches the U.S. border,” while also acknowledging Mexico’s
right to handle the crisis in a sovereign fashion.
“Mexico will make its decision,” Pompeo said. “Its
leaders and its people will decide the best way to achieve what I believe are
our shared objectives.”
At Mexico City’s airport before leaving, Pompeo said four
Mexican federal police officers had been injured in the border standoff and
expressed his sympathy.
On Thursday, Videgaray asked the U.N. for help processing
what Mexico expects to be a large number of asylum requests.
But Jose Porfirio Orellana, a 47-year-old farmer from
Yoro province in Honduras, said he has his sights set on the United States due
to woeful economic conditions in his country.
“There is nothing there,” Orellana said.
Migrants have banded together to travel en masse
regularly in recent years, but this caravan was unusual for its huge size, said
Victor Clark Alfaro, a Latin American studies professor at San Diego State
University. By comparison, a caravan in April that also attracted Trump’s ire
numbered about 1,000.
“It grabs one’s attention that the number of people in
these kinds of caravans is on the rise,” Clark Alfaro said. “It is migration of
a different dimension.”
Elizabeth Oglesby, a professor at the University of
Arizona’s Center for Latin American Studies, said people join caravans like
this because it’s a way to make the journey in a relatively safe manner and
avoid having to pay thousands of dollars to smugglers. She disputed Pompeo’s
assertion that that there is a “crisis” of migration.
“The border is not in crisis. This is not a migration
crisis. ... Yes, we are seeing some spikes in Central Americans crossing the
border, but overall migration is at a 40-year low,” Oglesby said.
Speaking on the Televisa network, Videgaray did not seem
concerned about Trump’s threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border, saying it had
to be viewed in light of the hotly contested U.S. midterm elections, in which
Trump has made border security a major campaign issue.
Videgaray noted that 1 million people transit the border
legally every day, and about $1 million in commerce crosses every minute.
“Before taking decisions of that kind,” Videgaray said,
“there would be many people in the United States ... who would consider the
consequences.”
___
Associated Press writers Peter Orsi, Christopher Sherman
and Maria Verza in Mexico City contributed to this report.
