Nearly 3,300 additional Central American caravan migrants arrived at the Mexican northern border city of Tijuana on Saturday, authorities in Mexico stated.
Approximately 3,292 migrants are expected to arrive in the border city of Tijuana today according to the El Instituto Nacional de Migración known as INM according to local media reports. These are in addition to those previously reported arrivals.
The migrant caravan with approximately 3,300 migrants was expected to arrive in Tijuana this morning according to the Mexican government agency tasked with tracking human migration (INM). The caravan reportedly traveled north through the state of Sinaloa yesterday toward the northern border state of Sonora. The group took nearly the same route as previous caravan groups, officials stated.
According to the INM, there are a total of 2,779 migrants in Tijuana not including Saturday’s 3292 scheduled arrivals. There are an additional 657 in the city of Mexicali which borders the U.S. city of Calexico, California. Another group of migrants in the central Mexican state of Queretaro consists of 3,036 migrants. All these migrants are part of the original group that crossed into Mexico approximately one month ago which then consisted of 9,664 — a majority from the country of Honduras.
The Honduran ambassador to Mexico, Alden Rivera has been monitoring the caravan’s travels through Mexico and said that approximately 5,500 were from his country. He advised that several of his countrymen were suffering from respiratory infections. The ambassador announced that a mobile consulate would be set up in order to provide official documents at no cost and to ensure that Mexican authorities were providing proper humanitarian aid.
Ambassador Rivera said, “We do not have an economy that allows us (to provide aid) … it sounds somewhat irresponsible because they are Hondurans, and, in the end, we should take charge and be responsible for Hondurans anywhere in the world,” he explained.
Rivera said he will monitor authorities in Mexico and the United States to ensure that due process for his countrymen is respected as required in the country they eventually decide to stay in. He also called on his countrymen to respect the laws of Mexico and the United States in order to have a great possibility of obtaining asylum or refugee status.
Breitbart Texas reported on the movement of this migrant caravan which involved transportation provided by buses being escorted by state and federal police. Breitbart Texas has also reported that Mexican citizens began protesting the migrant caravan’s arrival in Tijuana. These protests turned violent, leading law enforcement to separate the migrants from the demonstrators.
Local law enforcement sources said many in the caravan are reporting that they were not told when they left central America that they would be encountering problems in crossing into the United States. This was also reported by local media outlet El Universal.
Robert Arce is a retired Phoenix Police detective with extensive experience working Mexican organized crime and street gangs. Arce has worked in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti, and recently completed a three-year assignment in Monterrey, Mexico, working out of the Consulate for the United States Department of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Program, where he was the Regional Program Manager for Northeast Mexico (Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.) You can follow him on Twitter. He can be reached at robertrarce@gmail.com