3 weeks ago
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TAPACHULA, Mexico -- A small migrant caravan has set out from southern Mexico, heading north, but is unlikely to reach the U.S. border after authorities broke up two other small caravans headed to the United States over the weekend.
About 1,500 migrants — mostly from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras — set out walking on Sunday from Tapachula, a city near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala. They set out at night, to avoid the scorching daytime heat in the region.
The two other small caravans had set out in November, after Donald Trump's election, but both were broken up weeks later by Mexican authorities. Some migrants were bused to cities in southern Mexico, and others were offered transit papers.
Some in the caravan that set out Sunday said they would be willing to stay and find work in the industrial cities of northern Mexico. Most migrants cannot work, or cannot find work, in Tapachula, a city flooded with migrants.
Santos Modesto, a migrant from Honduras, said most of those in the caravan would say they want to get to the U.S. so they could "achieve a better life for their families.”
“But I think a lot of people here, if there were opportunities in Monterrey and surrounding areas, they would stay there,” Modesto said, “because there are a lot of Cubans and Venezuelans who would rather stay here than return to their country.”
The migrants said they were also concerned that Trump may eliminate the cellphone app CBP One that makes asylum claims more orderly after his Jan. 20 inauguration. About 1,450 appointments are made available daily, encouraging migrants to get an appointment before they show up at the border.
“There are a lot of reports that he has said he is going to do away with CBP One, that there are going to be deportations, the biggest deportation, but you have to have faith in God,” said Venezuelan migrant Francisco Unda, 38.
Trump has threatened to slap 25% tariffs on Mexican products unless the country does more to stem the flow of migrants to the U.S. border.
Last week, Trump said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum had agreed to stop unauthorized migration across the border into the U.S. Sheinbaum wrote on her social media accounts the same day that “migrants and caravans are taken care of before they reach the border.”
Sheinbaum has said she is confident that a tariff war with the U.S. can be averted but her statement — the day after she had a phone call with Trump — did not make clear who had offered what.
Apart from the much larger first caravans in 2018 and 2019 — which were provided buses to ride part of the way north — no caravan has ever reached the U.S. border walking or hitchhiking in any cohesive way, though some individual members have made it.
For years, migrant caravans have often been blocked, harassed or prevented from hitching rides by Mexican police and immigration agents. They have also frequently been rounded up or returned to areas near the Guatemalan border.
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