REPORT: Mexico Allows 10K Migrant Caravan to Head for U.S. Border
Mexican police and immigration officials allowed a nearly 10,000-strong migrant caravan to cross the country’s southern border and head to the United States, an organizer told Fox News. The group departed without government resistance from Tapachula in southern Mexico on Monday.
A group of approximately 9,500 migrants crossed the border between Guatemala and Mexico with plans to head to the United States, an organizer of the group told Fox News. The group consists mainly of migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
“We consider we are around 9,500, it measures 51/2 km from the start to the end, people keep on joining, in the first police check there were approx 100-150 national guard, INM, state police and let us through freely,” caravan’s organizer Luis Villagran told Fox News.
The migrants are counting on President Joe Biden to cancel the Title 42 coronavirus protection protocol put in place during the Trump administration.
“He promised the Haitian community he will help them,” migrants told Fox News on Friday. “He will recall Title 42. He will help us have real asylum.”
“Now we need him to keep his promise,” a Haitian migrant stated.
However, some migrants clearly are coming for economic opportunity and not for a valid asylum claim.
One migrant, Venezuelan Liozanys Comeja, left her country five years ago and resides safely in Colombia, the Guardian reported. She left Colombia recently in a quest to head to the United States “due to the rising cost of living,” the news outlet stated.
The group could become the largest caravan to head for the U.S.-Mexico Border as it is expected to grow from its current census of about 10,000 to as many as 15,000 before it reaches its destination. The group is expected to follow the “coastal route” which would bring many of the migrants to Texas.
The Guardian report reveals the changing level of cooperation between the Government of Mexico and caravan organizers. The article states:
Earlier this month, the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM), wrote to Villagrán, expressing sympathy for the caravan’s members and pledging to help the most vulnerable among them. The letter also acknowledges that the caravan is a result of the stunning tsunami of migration from nearly every country in the Americas to the United States in the past few years, attributing this migration to elevated rates of violence and economic instability in the continent.
It is a striking response from the leaders of a bureaucracy that migrants often describe as routinely unhelpful and even deliberately dysfunctional.
But the letter also marks the first time the Mexican government has responded to a caravan before its departure, and may signal a shift in how the authorities respond to large groups of migrants.
Breitbart Texas reached out to the Office of the Texas Governor to ascertain what response the State will take in dealing with Mexico and the migrant caravan. Governor Abbott’s spokesperson, Renae Eze replied:
Texas has and continues ramping up every available strategy and resource in response to President Biden’s ongoing border crisis to protect our state and our nation. With our ongoing relationships with Mexican border governors, Texas stands ready to work across the border to stop the latest migrant caravan drawn by President Biden’s open border policies. Thanks to Governor Abbott negotiating historic agreements with Mexican border governors, Texas has already begun and continues conducting joint exercises with Texas and Mexican law enforcement in Tamaulipas, equipping Coahuila with razor wire to secure their side of the border, and shutting down access to popular gathering locations like the Del Rio bridge.
And since Governor Abbott launched Operation Lone Star last year, over 10,000 National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers have been deployed to the border and apprehended over 260,000 migrants, arrested over 16,000 criminals, turned back over 17,000 illegal immigrants, and seized over 347 million deadly doses of fentanyl. Governor Abbott has also directed innovative strategies no state or governor in U.S. history has ever done to secure our nation’s borders, including building our own border wall, busing migrants to our nation’s capital, and activating the Joint Border Security Operations Center. While President Biden and Congress refuse to act and do their jobs, Texas continues stepping up to secure our border and protect Texans and Americans across the country.
The Biden Administration is in the process of appealing a court order stopping the administration from canceling the Title 42 protocol. In May, open border activists lobbied the administration to bring Title 42 to an end, Breitbart reported.
A combination of official and unofficial numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection sources show that more than 600,000 migrants crossed the U.S. border from Mexico since March 1. Ending Title 42 could bring approximately 18,000 illegal border crossers per day to the border, according to a DHS report reviewed by Breitbart.
