National/International: First Migrant Caravans Reach US Border

Migrant Caravan arrives in Tijuana (@Animal Político)

In mid-November, the first contingents of caravans of Central American migrants who arrived in Mexico last month with the aim of reaching the border with the United States began arriving in Tijuana.

“I do not dare to describe them as migrants (…) They are a bunch of vagrants and marijuana users,” said Tijuana mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum on their arrival, complaining to the media that the Mexican government “has not done its job” and that “the tranquility and security of Tijuana is being affected.” On November 14th, there was also an altercation between neighbors of Playas de Tijuana and Central Americans who had settled in that area of the city. “Go away, go away!” some neighbors shouted.

They arrived in buses that have allowed them to cover a distance of more than 2,000 kilometers in a few days as the state governments of the so-called “Pacific Route” (Jalisco, Nayarit, Sinaloa and Sonora), have accelerated the transit of migrants so that they did not remain in their states. The organization Pueblos Sin Fronteras expressed its concern over the integrity of the members of the caravan since they did not have access to water or food on trips of up to 48 hours by bus.

Even having arrived at the border, the uncertainty about the future of the caravan and those that are still on the way (which would still represent 6,000 more people) is maintained because although the objective of the migrants is for the US government to grant them refugee status due to the extreme violence and poverty living in their countries, to achieve this they must cross the border through official access, in accordance with a decree signed the previous week by President Donald Trump. By using unauthorized entry points, Central American migrants would be arrested, which would make them ineligible to remain in the country or seek asylum.

The Mexican secretary of the Interior, Alfonso Navarrete Prida, affirmed that the possibilities of entering the United States are “practically nil” and assured that the Mexican government will seek to prevent them from entering the country by force: “There is a huge risk of have an incident on the border line, when we have also heard the openly hostile speech of the US government,” he explained.

For more information in Spanish:

Integrantes de la segunda caravana migrante enfilan rumbo a Irapuato (Proceso, 17 de noviembre de 2018)

El alcalde de Tijuana arremete contra la caravana de emigrantes (El País, 17 de noviembre de 2018)

Cerca de 2.000 migrantes centroamericanos están en frontera México-EE.UU. (VO Noticias, 16 de noviembre de 2018)

Tijuana prepara plan para recibir a migrantes de caravanas (CNN México, 16 de noviembre de 2018)

Segunda caravana migrante se dirige hacia Querétaro (La Jornada, 16 de noviembre de 2018)

Grupo de migrantes centroamericanos llegó a Tijuana; vecinos de la zona protestaron por su presencia (Animal Político, 15 de noviembre de 2018)

Caravana de migrantes: Trump endurece las reglas de solicitud de asilo para los que crucen a Estados Unidos desde México (BBC, 9 de noviembre de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Nacional/Internacional : México, ¿filtro migratorio ? (15 de septiembre de 2018)

National / International: First Migrant Caravan advances in Mexico; a person dies in the second caravan trying to enter; Trump announces operation «Faithful Patriot» to close US border (November 3, 2018)

Chiapas / National / International: Migrant Caravan about to enter Oaxaca (November 3, 2018)