Trump threatens to reduce foreign aid over the migrant caravan
Trump threatens to reduce foreign aid over the migrant caravan
TAPACHULA, Mexico. An estimated 5,000 Honduran migrants, some on foot with children and some truck trips, left Monday from southern Mexico on an exhausting trip to the US border, while President Trump threatened to end or cut foreign aid to Central America. Countries for not having stopped the caravan.
The caravan's 11-day march through Honduras and Guatemala and in Mexico has fueled a new political divide between Mr. Trump and the leaders of those countries just two weeks before the mid-term elections in the United States.
In a series of tweets on Monday, Trump said he had alerted the United States Border Patrol and the military that the caravan was a national emergency. He criticized El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico for not stopping the group or curbing the flow of migrants, called for a review of US immigration laws. UU And he exhorted his supporters: "Remember the intermediates!"
The caravan left on October 12, after several hundred people pledged to travel north from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, one of the most violent cities in the world. The numbers grew rapidly after local media, social activists and leftist opposition politicians drew attention to the initiative.
At the end of last week, the caravan arrived at the door of Mexico. Under pressure from the United States, Mexico. offered asylum to migrants but he said he would only allow groups of 150 to 200 people per day to process their applications. Anyone who crossed the border illegally would be deported, the Mexican authorities warned.
The Honduran government estimates that 2,000 migrants returned to their homes. Mexico says that 1,000 or fewer have applied for asylum. But the majority, about 5,000, according to the Mexican government, crossed the border illegally, mainly in rickety rafts run by people smugglers.
On Monday, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto asked the migrants to stop crossing the country illegally.
"They will hardly achieve their goals of emigrating to the United States or remain in Mexico if they continue with this attitude," said Peña Nieto at a business summit in Guadalajara.
Interior Minister Alfonso Navarrete, however, said Mexico would not use violence to stop the caravan. "They will not be deported or repatriated," he said. "We want to exhaust the dialogue with those who joined the caravan."
The group is still far away and many days from the border of the United States, facing a difficult journey through some of the most violent areas of Mexico. There are several routes, which include a 1,100-mile long trip to the border city of Reynosa through McAllen, Texas, or a much longer hike of 2,420 miles to Tijuana through San Diego.
"We can not get to the northern border completely," said Irineo Mujica, the head of Gente sin Fronteras, a nonprofit organization in the US. UU And Mexico that has supported the caravan since its arrival in Guatemala. Such a large group moving through Mexico days before the midterms of the United States, he added, would embolden Mr. Trump. "If this full caravan arrives at the border of the United States, it would be like a declaration of war," said Mujica.
Others trusted that the caravan could remain united and reach the border of the United States. "The plan is to get to Tijuana! The fight continues, we do not give up, "said Denis Contreras, a Honduran migrant and social activist who helps organize the caravan, a loudspeaker in his hand.
Most migrants say they want to get to the United States, but in general they do not know what legal options lie ahead. Many said they were determined to leave Honduras, which is among the highest rates of violence in the world. When they saw news on television that a caravan had left San Pedro Sula heading north, many thought it was the right time to leave.
"I was in my apartment near Tegucigalpa when I saw [my news] The channel the caravan was leaving, "said María Rodríguez, 17 years old. I told myself, that's my chance. "She said a criminal gang extorted her family business and demanded a" war tax, "calling it that because" if you do not pay, the gang destroys your business and kills you. "
A dozen Honduran migrants said they learned about the migrant caravan on Facebook in early October in a post that asked prospective migrants to join the bus terminal in San Pedro Sula on October 12 at 8 a.m.
"A friend of mine shared a post ... Then I spoke with my friends and I convinced them to go together, and they also talked with their own friends and neighbors," said Manuel Valladares, 22, who travels with four friends.
For many aspiring migrants, going in a caravan is attractive because you can avoid paying about $ 5,000 in smugglers' fees and it is safer to travel in numbers.
On October 5, Honduran social activist and leftist politician Bartolo Fuentes shared the information about the caravan on his Facebook account, criticizing the government for not helping potential immigrants to have a safe trip. His publication was shared more than 200 times, and he continued to publish extensively about the caravan in the following days.
The conservative president of the government of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, said that Mr. Fuentes and other left-wing activists were behind the caravan. On September 26, before the news of the caravan became public, Mr. Fuentes said in his Facebook account: "There are already groups of migrants who are looking to leave in a more organized way in the coming weeks."
Mr. Fuentes has repeatedly denied being the organizer. "The real organizer of the caravan is violence, poverty, unemployment," he said. He was arrested in Guatemala on October 16 for violating the immigration rules of that country and deported to Honduras on Friday.
The migrant caravan puts Mexico between a rock and a difficult place, said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank in Washington.
"Most Mexicans sympathize with migrants, so politically it becomes very difficult for the government to act against the caravan because it has so much visibility," he said. "On the other hand, you do not want to anger the US and be seen as simply allowing migrants to cross your country freely."
On Sunday, Mr. Trump warned migrants on Twitter that if they did not accept Mexico's offer of asylum, they would be denied entry to the United States. He said that on Monday the caravan included "unknown criminals and Middle East", without offering evidence.
Trump has seized the caravan to gather Republican voters before the Nov. 6 election. The races closed in the Senate are being fought in the border states of Arizona and Texas, USA. UU
"We need a quick wall built," Trump told a crowd of supporters in Houston on Monday night during a rally for Senator Ted Cruz, his only political rival.
"We have to protect our borders. We do not have borders, we do not have a country, "he said.
In a speech delivered at the Texas Oil and Gas Association forum on Monday, Mr. Cruz called the caravan a "serious threat" to the security of the US border. UU And he said the crisis could require putting the Border Patrol on the border or "calling the National Guard." "
The White House did not say how or when the United States would begin to change the amount of aid it sends to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. For fiscal year 2019, the United States plans to send around $ 70 million in aid to Guatemala, $ 66 million to Honduras and $ 46 million to El Salvador, according to the State Department. The majority of the funds goes to programs for the prevention of violence, justice and the rule of law, along with funds for the application of border measures and narcotics.
A caravan of around 3,000 migrants fleeing Honduras continues to gather near Guatemala's border with Mexico, while President Donald Trump threatened to deploy the army and close the US-Mexico border. UU And Mexico. Photo: Reuters
Cutting aid to the Central American countries would be a mistake, since US aid dollars fund programs that reduce violence, strengthen the justice system and encourage investments that make them more attractive to their citizens, said Marcela Escobari, Scholar of the Brookings Institution. .
Studies have shown that once a country's GDP per capita reaches between $ 6,000 and $ 8,000, the gains of migrating to a place become less attractive, said Ms. Escobari, who served under the presidency of America. President Barack Obama for the United States Agency for International Development.
"We have to prevent these countries from becoming failed states, because that is what is going to cause a tremendous exodus," he said.
Immigrants seeking asylum in the United States, either at a legal border crossing or when being arrested by the Border Patrol for illegally crossing, are subjected to a "credible fear" interview to decide if an immigration judge should listen your request. More than 75% of immigrants pass the so-called "credible fear bar," according to statistics from the United States government. Those who do not pass that initial interview are subject to deportation.
Immigration authorities can imprison asylum seekers until their case is resolved, but the space for the bed is scarce, as the Trump administration intensifies the application of the immigration law both at the border and inside the country. I know.
For those released in the USA A final decision could take years in the midst of an accumulation of more than 764,000 pending cases in federal immigration court. During that time, they can live in the United States and apply for work permits, something that Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized.
-Rebecca Ballhaus in Washington and Alicia Caldwell in Los Angeles contributed to this article.
Write to Juan Montes in juan.montes@wsj.com
Corrections and Amplifications
The caravan of migrants crossed Guatemala. An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled Guatemala in one instance. (October 22, 2018)
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