We reported back in October about a large caravan preparing to leave the city of Tapachula, in southern Mexico. That group, consisting of Central Americans, Cubans, and Haitians, was headed by one Irineo Mujica, who promised they were “ready for war” with anyone who barred their entry into the United States.
We’d heard little about the caravan in the months since, until last week, when Reuters published a report on December 23. According to Reuters, the remnant of the caravan, now some hundreds fewer than the 3,000 that started out in October, had in the meantime reached Mexico City and stalled. Mujica, still the migrants’ leader, has now finalized an agreement with Mexican authorities to provide visas and bus transportation out of Mexico City and toward the United States.
On Wednesday, December 22, Mujica told a cheering crowd: “A new chapter is beginning, in which this caravan today will split up and dissolve so that each person can follow his dreams individually.”
Those “individual” dreams, which still seem to universally include life in the United States, come courtesy of the Mexican Interior Ministry and National Migration Institute. That agency has issued a statement promising to take the migrants by bus to the northern cities of Hermosillo, Monterrey, and Chihuahua, as well as Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso.
Although financial concerns are not a qualifying condition of asylum in the U.S., the migrants seem undeterred by legalities. One migrant from Honduras, whose wife is pregnant with a potential anchor baby, told Reuters that he joined the caravan to escape poverty. “My mission is the United States,” he declared flatly.
He’s not by himself, and each appears to believe that Uncle Joe in the White House will take them in. Who’s to say they’re wrong? We doubt Mr. Mujica will need to go to war.
For more, see Reuters.