On Saturday, August 28, a group of about 600 migrants, mostly Haitian, set out on foot from the town of Tapachula in southern Mexico about 23 miles from the Guatemalan border. Leaving in two waves of about 300 migrants each, the caravan was the largest so far in a year of unprecedented illegal migration into the United States.
Impetus for the departure of the group seems to have come from the community of thousands of Haitians which has collected in Tapachula during the past several months. In a city with an estimated 120,000 migrants, about 30,000 are estimated to be Haitians. A few days earlier a group of Haitians had demonstrated outside the offices of the Comar refugee assistance agency to vent their frustrations.
About eight hours after their departure from Tapachula, the group passed through an immigration checkpoint without any problems but then were blocked by Mexican National Guard troops in riot gear. Some were arrested but about 400 eluded capture and continued northward to Huixtla, about 25 miles away, where they were provided food and shelter by local Catholic relief agencies.
Further information on the caravan’s progress is sketchy at this point, but growing discontent, especially among the Haitians, seems to be spurring them to action. Meanwhile, the Mexican government seems determined, in the words of Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval, to “stop all migration.” More than 14,000 military and National Guard personnel have been deployed in southern Mexico to do just that.
For more, see BorderReport.