SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras, Jan 15, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Hundreds of asylum
seekers are forming new migrant caravans in Honduras, planning to walk
thousands of kilometers through Central America to the United States via
Guatemala and Mexico, in search of a better life under the new administration
of President-elect Joe Biden.
A first group of some 300 people set out at dawn on Thursday from San Pedro
Sula, the second-largest city in Honduras, headed for Corinto, on the border
with Guatemala, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest.
Traveling in small groups, some bearing the Honduran flag, most of the
traveling migrants wore face masks to protect against the coronavirus.
According to social media pages, another 3,000 people are to meet at San
Pedro Sula on Thursday evening to leave in the small hours for Corinto or
Agua Caliente elsewhere on the border, some 260 kilometers away.
The migrants say they are escaping poverty, unemployment and gang and drug
violence, as well as the aftermath of two violent hurricanes that hit the
country last November.
The country has meanwhile mobilized 7,000 police officers to supervise the
migrants on their journey to the Guatemalan border.
“We are fleeing poverty. I have not had a job since March, when the
pandemic began,” said Jessenia Ramirez, 36, who had worked as a restaurant
cook and leaves behind her husband and three children in hopes of being able
to better provide for them.
But in a message to the group, Mark Morgan, acting Commissioner of the US
Customs and Border Protection warned them not to “waste your time and money”.
“The dangerous journey both puts you in harm’s way and endangers the lives
and health of those in the US and regional countries through the potential
spread of Covid-19,” he said in a statement last week.
The US commitment to the “rule of law and public health” is not affected by
a change in the administration, he stressed, and migrant caravans will not be
allowed to make their way north in violation of national sovereignty and
immigration laws.
– ‘Deadly journey’ –
“This is a deadly journey – the US Border Patrol recovered more than 250
bodies along the US-Mexico border last fiscal year. We saw two deaths just
last week, when smugglers abandoned dozens of migrants in a winter storm that
dumped two feet of snow near Big Bend, Texas,” added Morgan.
Honduras police chief Julian Hernandez meanwhile told reporters that
“organized crime is promoting the caravans.”
“It is sad to see these families leave with hope of improving their living
conditions, at the risk of falling into the hands of these criminals,” he
said.
More than a dozen migrant caravans have set off from Honduras since October
2018 — at least four of them with 3,000 people each. But all have run up
against thousands of US border guards and soldiers positioned on Mexico’s
southern border by US President Donald Trump’s administration.
Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras have an agreement with the United States to
stop north-bound migratory flows from the south of the continent.
Guatemala on Thursday declared seven departments in a state of “prevention”
as the amassing continued.
The decree, published in the government gazette, cited concern for the
“safety of the inhabitants” of departments through which the caravan would
transit, and gave security forces the authority to “forcibly dissolve any
type of public meeting or demonstration” held without authorization.
Biden has promised “a fair and humane immigration system” and pledged aid
to tackle the root causes of poverty and violence that drive Central
Americans to the United States.
Trump, on the other hand, froze a $750 million aid package agreed by his
predecessor Barack Obama — whose vice president was Biden.
The outgoing, twice-impeached president has characterized immigrants from
Mexico as “rapists” who were “bringing drugs” and other criminal activity
with them to the United States.
Guatemala’s government has warned that anyone wanting to pass through its
territory must show a negative coronavirus test and have their papers in
order.
Mexico’s consulate in San Pedro Sula, from where caravans usually leave,
warned that its government “does not encourage and will not allow the illegal
entry of caravans.”