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MEXICO-CENTRAM-US-MIGRATION-POLITICS
New migrant caravan reaches US-Mexico border
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico, Feb 6, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Around 1,700 migrants
traveling by caravan reached the US-Mexican border Tuesday, just as President
Donald Trump prepared to give a major speech certain to include calls for his
long-sought wall.
The Central American migrants, mostly Hondurans, arrived in the city of
Piedras Negras, Coahuila, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas.
The local mayor, Claudio Bres Garza, said the city would welcome “all those
who behave themselves,” after Coahuila’s Governor Miguel Angel Riquelme vowed
not to accept more undocumented migrants in the state.
Their arrival came as Trump was set to deliver his annual State of the
Union address, with the issue of border security center stage after a record
five-week government shutdown triggered by his spat with Congress over
funding for his promised wall.
“Tremendous numbers of people are coming up through Mexico in the hopes of
flooding our Southern Border. We have sent additional military. We will build
a Human Wall if necessary. If we had a real Wall, this would be a non-event!”
Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.
Authorities in Piedras Negras converted several old factory buildings into
shelters to house the migrants. Women and children will sleep separately from
the men, they said.
The migrants were part of a group of around 2,200 who began their journey
on January 15 in Honduras. Around 500 of the caravan’s original members
decided to accept the Mexican government’s offer of humanitarian visas to
remain in Mexico and work for up to a year.
Another group of around 3,800 migrants is in southern Mexico, in the state
of Chiapas. They planned to regroup Wednesday and then continue their
northward trek.
Several thousand Central Americans have trekked across Mexico by caravan
since last year, fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries.
They travel en masse in hopes of finding safety in numbers against Mexican
gangs that regularly extort, kidnap and kill migrants, sometimes in collusion
with local authorities.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0833 hrs