People from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala flee from violence and poverty in their homeland in the direction of United States.
Thousands of migrants from Central America are awaiting their route to the US at a border crossing between Guatemala and Mexico. Some tried to cross the border river Suchiate on Saturday to continue their journey without formal registration, according to the mayor of the municipality, Sonia Eloina Hernandez Aguilar.
“They organize themselves to cross the river and move on.” The people had slept the night on the border bridge. There are about 3,000 people in refugee camps in the community, according to the mayor.
On Friday, the migrants had crossed the border fence between the two Latin American countries to get to Mexico and continue from there to the US border. It is estimated that between 5,000 to 6,000 people are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala who were at the border. Several dozens volunteered to return to Honduras by bus, as the National Civil Police Guatemala announced on Twitter.
The Former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, met in the morning in
Guatemala with his counterpart Jimmy Morales, the Guatemalan government announced on Twitter. Morales and Hernandez wanted to talk about a strategy and logistics to bring the migrants back to Honduras, it said.
US President Donald Trump called on migrants to return on Friday. “Do not come to this country” Trump said on Friday in Scottsdale in the US state Arizona. The US president claimed that many of the migrants were offenders. “A pretty large percentage of these people are criminals,” Trump said. He did not clarify the source of this information. Trump had threatened to close the border with Mexico. He emphasized that this time he would call not the National Guard but the armed forces. Whether that would be lawful is unclear. A federal law prohibits US forces from enforcing the law by force in the United States.
Sources: Kurier.at