The second migrant caravan to come from Guatemala into Mexico since October 19 crossed into Mexico on October 29, defying a large police presence. An AP article that same day reported that members of the caravan were believed to be armed with bombs and guns. Some members of the caravan made Molotov cocktails out of gasoline-filled soft-drink bottles, and others modified PVC tubes to launch fireworks.
Mexican authorities reported that migrants attacked its agents with rocks, glass bottles, and fireworks when they broke through a gate on the Mexican end of the bridge spanning the Suchiate River, but police managed to push them back.
Mexican Interior Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida expressed regret for what he called a second “violent attempt” to storm the border, and accused the caravan organizers of placing the elderly, pregnant women, and children at the front, putting them at risk of being crushed.
“Fortunately, that did not happen,” said the secretary.
Despite the difficulty of crossing the border into Mexico (many waded or swam across the Suchiate River), more than 1,000 people in this second migrant caravan began walking through southern Mexico on October 30 and reached the Mexican border city of Tapachula. This placed them about 250 miles behind the first, larger caravan of about 4,000 mainly Honduran migrants that entered Mexico 10 days ago. They are more than 1,100 miles from Reynosa, across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas.
An earlier caravan that headed toward the United States last spring also began with more than 1,500 mostly Honduran marchers, but only about 300 reached Tijuana on the U.S.-Mexico border. Of those just 122 were arrested for jumping the border, while more than 330 followed government directions and waited to apply for asylum through the official ports of entry, and are now in processing in the United States.
Despite the Trump administration announcing very publicly a zero-tolerance policy for the caravan, authorities have announced charges against only a small fraction of the 122 people who jumped the border.
The New American reported on October 29 that the “migrant caravan” turned down an offer of asylum made by Mexico and insisted it would continue its march to illegally cross the U.S. border.
President Trump has dispatched 5,000 troops to help secure the U.S. border, calling the situation “an emergency.”
Image: Screenshot of a YouTube video by ABC News
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