migrants

Reports have circulated that hundreds of Hondurans have gathered in the crime ridden city of San Pedro Sula and with plans to head toward the US-Mexico border. Guatemalan immigration authorities warned that about 1,100 migrants including children onboard buses were headed for their common border.

The migrants who formed a new caravan told reporters that President Donald Trump’s threat to close the border will not stop their attempts to reach the US.  Many of them can’t support their families in Honduras so they opted to join the caravan, hoping to land better opportunities in the US.

Nohemy Reyes, who waited at the bus station with one of her five children, said her country’s economic straits are driving her north.

“The economic situation is very difficult,” she said. But if she finds the U.S. border closed, she said, she will return to Honduras.

Another migrant told CNN in Spanish: “I’m not afraid. When you set yourself a goal and you trust in God then you do everything to get there and in my case, my goal is to get to the US.”

Mexico’s immigration authority, the National Migration Institute, reported on Friday, that some members of the caravan of 2,500 from Guatemala had a violent clash with local police in the southern town of Metapa de Dominguez.:

“With an aggressive attitude, the migrants broke the padlock on the border gate and entered the country.”

President Trump warned the migrants attempting to reach the US via Mexico border to stop forming caravans and ordered the suspension of aid payments to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – the three countries from which most of the migrants in the caravan originate.

The US border facilities are currently swamped with Central American migrants.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced this week that more than 103,000 migrants were apprehended or deemed “inadmissible” in March, up from almost 77,000 in February. With the new caravan from Honduras arriving, the numbers will continue to rise.

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