A small migrant caravan from southern Mexico is heading north, but it is unlikely to reach the U.S. border after authorities broke up two other small caravans headed toward the United States over the weekend.
About 1,500 migrants — most of them from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras — set out on foot on Sunday from the city of Tapachula, near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala. They set out at night to avoid the region’s scorching daytime heat.
The other two smaller caravans set out in November after Donald Trump’s election, but both were broken up by Mexican authorities a few weeks later. Some migrants were transported by buses to cities in southern Mexico, and others were given transit papers.
Some in Sunday’s caravan said they were willing to stay and find work in industrial cities in northern Mexico. Most migrants cannot work, or cannot find work, in Tapachula, a city packed with migrants.
Santos Modesto, a migrant from Honduras, said most of the people in the caravan would say they wanted to go to the U.S. so they could “have a better life for their families.” “But I think if there were opportunities in Monterrey and the surrounding areas, a lot of people here would stay, because a lot of Cubans and Venezuelans would rather stay here than return to their country,” Modesto said.
The migrants said they are also concerned that Trump might end CBP One, a cellphone app that makes asylum claims more streamlined, after he is sworn in on Jan. 20. About 1,450 appointments are made available per day, encouraging migrants to make appointments before they arrive at the border.
“There are many reports that they have said they are going to end CBP One, that there are going to be deportations, the biggest deportations, but you have to have faith in God,” said Francisco Unda, a 38-year-old Venezuelan migrant.
Trump has threatened to impose a 25% tariff on Mexican products unless the country takes more steps to stop the flow of migrants to the US border.
Last week, Trump said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum had agreed to stop unauthorized migration across the border into the US. Sheinbaum wrote on her social media account the same day that “migrants and caravans are taken care of before they reach the border.”
Sheinbaum has said she is confident a tariff war with the US can be avoided, but her statement – a day after a phone call with Trump – did not clarify who had offered what.
Apart from the first very large caravans in 2018 and 2019 – which were provided buses to travel north – no caravan has ever reached the US border by any means, either on foot or by hitchhiking, although some individual members have managed to do so.
Over the years, migrant caravans have often been stopped, harassed or prevented from hitchhiking by Mexican police and immigration agents. They have also often been surrounded or turned back in areas near the Guatemalan border.