More than 10,000 Central Americans bound for US request Mexican visas
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
MEXICO CITY - Mexico said Wednesday that more than 10,000 people have requested visas to cross its southern border as it seeks to grant legal documents to members of a rapidly growing U.S.-bound migrant caravan from Central America.
If the migrants travel together, the convoy could exceed the size of the last such caravan, which became a flash point in U.S.-Mexican relations as President Donald Trump seized on it to argue for building a giant border wall.
But the new movement is far less organized than the last caravan. Those migrants traveled together in part to avoid arrest. The current group of migrants, in contrast, will have legal papers and may disperse.
Still, analysts said the new Mexican policy of welcoming migrants with visas marked a stark change from the past - and could lead to an increase in migration and tensions with the Trump administration.
"If word gets out that people are able to get in legally, to work, that creates a huge incentive for people who hadn't thought of migrating," said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group.
The latest caravan set out from Honduras on Jan. 15 and initially totaled about 2,000 people. But other migrants continued to join the human flow as it began to reach the Mexican border, and its members were welcomed with the chance to apply for humanitarian visas.
The visas are part of a new policy by center-left President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has decried the sometimes-brutal treatment of Central American migrants by Mexican security forces in the past. In recent years, under American pressure, Mexico has also escalated its efforts to detain such migrants traveling without documents.
Lopez Obrador has called for reducing migration by investing in job creation in Central America. But his government has also indicated its willingness to work with the Trump administration, which is seeking to have Mexico host migrants applying for U.S. asylum during the entire process, which can take months or years.
Trump portrayed the last caravan as a national-security threat - even though most of the migrants appeared to be fleeing poverty and violence - and ordered the U.S. military to the border in response. Now, the president is locked in a bitter fight with congressional Democrats over a border wall, with his demand for funding leading to a government shutdown.
"Mexico is doing NOTHING to stop the Caravan which is now fully formed and heading to the United States," Trump tweeted Saturday. On Wednesday, he threatened to cut off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, saying the countries were "doing nothing for us."
Since Mexican authorities started accepting applications for the new visas Thursday, more than 10,000 migrants have applied - including 8,446 adults and 1,897 children or adolescents, according to figures issued Wednesday morning. The majority are from Honduras, which suffers high levels of violence, poverty and political instability.
So far, Mexican authorities have granted just 628 visas, causing the number of those stalled on the border to swell.
The soaring number of migrants requesting visas has raised questions about whether such mass movements may become a regular phenomenon. The U.S.-Mexico border city of Tijuana has struggled to accommodate about 5,000 people who arrived in November in the last caravan. About 1,800 are still there, according to Cesar Palencia, the head of migrant affairs for the city - many facing long waits for asylum interviews with U.S. officials.
"At the moment, we are beyond capacity, and there is still no shelter space," Palencia said in an interview. If a new caravan arrived, he said, it "would overwhelm us."
Some analysts cautioned that the huge number of Central Americans seeking visas did not necessarily represent a jump in migration - yet.
Stephanie Leutert, head of the Mexico Security Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin, noted that Mexican authorities apprehended more than 18,000 Central Americans trying to cross the country's southern border illegally in October, and about 12,000 in November. Some in the group seeking humanitarian visas, she said, may have been planning to cross illegally - and took advantage of a legal option when it emerged.
But if the policy continues, she said, it could change some of the dynamics of migration. "It's a 180-degree flip" for Mexico, she said.
Among those waiting Wednesday to receive visas was Samy Vazquez, 38, of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, who said he had gotten death threats for his work as a human-rights activist back home and wanted to seek asylum in the United States.
Now that he was getting a visa, he said, he had decided to send for family members in Honduras so they could sign up, too. "I'm not sure if it's best to travel with the big group or if we should take a bus to the border," he said by telephone.
Mexico has tried to help past caravan members by offering them jobs and temporary work permits. But most of the migrants want to head to the United States, Mexican officials acknowledge.
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"Mexico is doing NOTHING to stop the Caravan which is now fully formed and heading to the United States," Trump tweeted Saturday. On Wednesday, he threatened to cut off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, saying the countries were "doing nothing for us."
Still, analysts said the new Mexican policy of welcoming migrants with visas marked a stark change from the past - and could lead to an increase in migration and tensions with the Trump administration.
"If word gets out that people are able to get in legally, to work, that creates a huge incentive for people who hadn't thought of migrating," said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group.
One would think that after receiving $10.7 BILLION in the past 90 days from the U.S., which incidentally, the State Department "just" happened to find in their spare change drawer, that Mexico might want to cooperate with the U. S. instead of giving in to the migrants.
That $10.7 billion should have gone straight to our border for enhancing border security- which includes upgrading and expanding the fence.
It is a waste giving it to Mexico.
But, you notice squiggy, no one has defined or specified what the "development aid" is supposed to include. Border security would be a really nice touch.
Was it you who scoffed at me when I said that the turd in chief was ranting about a caravan from the Honduras heading this way?
Will it be here any minute now?
No, I scoffed at you for having a dirty mouth - but, you already knew that.
Sure, call them shitholes, berate them and threaten them. Then complain they don't do anything for you. This seems to be the way Trump negotiates. Of course if you're Russia or NK then you eat the corn from the dictators ass, but whatevs...
They are shitholes. Giving them billions in US aid every year doesn't seem to be doing a damn thing. Maybe threatening to take it away will jar the idiots into action.
You think they had done anything for us before Trump? ROFLOL Revisionism at it's finest.
What has Trump done for either Russia or NK? Sanctions still in place, and upgraded, against Russia. NK has what again? Outside of some talks that are going no where fast. Or are you against negotiating with countries now to improve relations?
Nothing up there said anything about before Trump. Stick to what I said.
NK gets a boost just being acknowledged by the US and he suspended joint military exorcises in SK at the NK insistence before the last meeting.
Besides all the sweet talk Trump gives Russia - A year ago Trump passed on implementing sanctions mandated by the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). The US military is beginning the removal of equipment & personnel from Syria at Russia's assistance. The intelligence community, Congress, the military and his own ambassadors have all advised Trump to take a harder line against Russia and all we get is, "I talked to Putin and he says he didn't do it."
I'd prefer someone negotiating that actually know what the fuck they are doing.
Trump evidently knows what he's doing regarding immigration than do the Dems.
They are shitholes. Why do you think people run away from those places by the thousands?
Folks - keep your political infighting off this thread. Trump/NK/Russia are not the topic.
No crisis at the border. Nope. Just look away...