Mexico sent federal police to its southern border Wednesday with a warning that they will detain and deport any members of a highly publicized migrant caravan who try to enter the country without a visa.
The police officers arrived in two planes in Tapachula, a border city that is a popular waypoint for migrants coming up through Central America to cross into Mexico. Local media reports showed hundreds of agents deplaning, some carrying riot gear.
In a
statement released Wednesday evening,
the Mexican foreign ministry said any of the caravan migrants entering the country "in an irregular manner" will be arrested and administratively deported if appropriate. Migrants who claim they are fleeing violence and want to petition for asylum must do so at the border, while remaining in a government-run camp for up to 45 days, the statement also said.
The caravan, dubbed "March of the Migrant," formed in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Friday, numbering about 150 migrants. It has since swelled to more than 2,000 people and has already crossed into neighboring Guatemala en route to the Mexican border.
Caravan members say they are fleeing endemic poverty and violence in Honduras. Upon reaching Mexico, the migrants intend to request refugee status or transit visas that will allow them to keep moving north to U.S. ports of entry, according to march organizers.
The caravan is the second large group of migrants to
attempt to reach the U.S. border through Mexico this year, following a similar procession in April.
In response to the earlier caravan, President Donald Trump accused Mexico of enabling illegal immigration and ordered thousands of national guard troops to the border in support of law enforcement agents, a deployment that continues today.Trump has
threatened governments of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador - where nearly all the caravan migrants are from - with foreign aid cuts if they don't act to stop the outflow. Honduras warned its citizens Tuesday against taking part in the march, while Guatemala detained some of the caravan organizers on charges of immigration violations.
As the caravan continued to move north through Guatemala on Thursday, Trump turned his attention to Mexico, asking for helping in stopping the "onslaught" of migrants. He threatened to use the military to close the southwest border if Mexico doesn't halt the procession.
"I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught - and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!" Trump
wrote on Twitter.
Adults from Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala only need to show their national identity cards to cross each other's borders, but the rule doesn't apply in Mexico. Prior to Wednesday's statement, the Mexican government had already said entry visas would not be granted to migrants who don't meet "the requirements to transit toward a neighboring country."
Mexico also said it does not grant visas at border ports of entry, only at Mexican consulates abroad.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is slated to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peรฑa Nieto in Mexico City on Friday, according to the State Department. The migrant caravan will be on the agenda, a department official said.
Reader Comments
Maybe the humane thing would be to invade Honduras, overthrow the oppressive government there, and install someone more hospitable to their own people? Why not, we do everywhere else.
solution#2
Get that wall built asap, and watch Mexico grapple with their own migrant invasion for once, see how it works?
I've thought about this for a while, and Trump had the only viable solution, build a containment wall. We as Americans have to put our own needs before others. We can't solve the World's problems. There is a legal way to immigrate to a country. I believe most industrial countries are coming around to accepting(the people, not the politicians) that we have to have orderly immigration.
[Link]
"Fruit corporations from the US turned Honduras, an impoverished tropical backwater, into a huge banana plantation at the start of the 20th century. They dominated its economy and politics, making it the original "banana republic".
The US intervened in numerous military coups to protect its commercial interests, embedding a conservative, Americanised elite. Contra guerrillas backed by President Ronald Reagan used Honduras as a base to attack Nicaragua's Sandinista government in the 1980s.
Enough of pretending to be less, because of half the immigrants that enter America are inbred, criminal and think life is cheap.
You keep lowering the standard in America to suit an immigrants flaws, then we all loose.
They enter here with their deformed, and stupid, and needy hands that can never be satiated. They are the lowest common denominator..
They bred like rats, and expect evertbody else to pay for it, they expect free everything.
They want work? When they have shitloads of work to do, socially, economically back were they came from. Go back home and work at making your own country great like the USA.
America and Americans first.
Sorry we are all full up here, and need to get back to being the greatest country in the World, and that IS exceptional.
Otherwise its back to stone age, and masses of illiterate users..
They aim to get into this country and take advantage of the myriad of santuary cities, and bleeding heart liberals. And free money, governors like Jerry 'Moonbeam' Brown is handing out.
Poverty is relative, and there is just as much, if not more of it in the USA and Canada.
Check out Denver these days, or how about San Farancisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Detroit... with human shit on the sidewalks from the homeless.
Take care of people at home.
Shoot these fuckers in the face if they try to cross the border.
Soros and his OPEN SOCIETY is a terrorist, and a terrorist organization and should be hunted down and imprisoned. This old bastard wishes to bring the world to an end in his lifetime.
Put a cap in that fuckers ass.
That SOB tried to kill England, with his run on the pound. He put Vietnam in a recession with his business practices. He has fueled and financed a majority of the protest against Trump. With his paid protestors.
This evil jew bastard was a Nazi in the second world war.
Hungary have threaten to put him in prison if he returns. And Hungary is his home land.