A manufactured crisis according to Democrats. Update to this post.
Via Daily Mail:
The latest caravan of Honduran migrants hoping to reach the US has crossed peacefully into Guatemala, under the watchful eyes of about 200 Guatemalan police and soldiers.
About 500 people, including dozens of children, lined up to show their documents to a first line of unarmed security personnel at the Agua Caliente border crossing Tuesday night. Riot police formed a second line to contain any possible disturbance.
Hundreds of Hondurans left the violent city of San Pedro Sula this week in a new caravan hoping to reach the United States or Mexico.
Guatemalan police officers assisted an exhausted Honduran migrant who who fainted while she waited to enter Guatemala at the crossing.
Edilberto Hernandez, a former police officer, stood with his wife and four children to cross into Guatemala. After losing his job, he could find only low-paid construction work, and he decided to travel with his whole family to the United States.
‘We are going out of necessity, because of the poverty,’ Hernandez said.
The fate that awaits them at the Mexico-U.S. border is uncertain. The previous caravans that were seized upon last year by U.S. President Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2018 midterm election have quietly dwindled, with many having gone home to Central America or put down roots in Mexico.
Despite the hard-line immigration rhetoric by the Trump administration, many others – nearly half, according to US Border Patrol arrest records – have sought to enter the U.S. illegally.
News of this latest trek north came as Trump has been working to convince the American public that there is a ‘crisis’ at the southern border to justify construction of his long-promised border wall. Trump’s demand for billions of dollars to build the wall has resulted in a standoff with Congress that has forced a partial government shutdown.
‘A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras. Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work,’ Trump tweeted Tuesday, referring to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer.
The latest caravan started out Monday night from Honduras with many women and children boarding buses bound for the Guatemalan border. Others started walking and hitchhiking under a steady rain.
More followed Tuesday morning trying to catch up. Some pushed toddlers in strollers or walked holding older children’s hands.
Honduran media reported that the country’s authorities had reinforced the border with Guatemala to make sure everyone had proper documents. Children must carry passports and written parental authorization to leave the country, and parents could face up to three years in prison if found to be taking a child without the right documents, Security Minister Julian Pacheco was quoted as saying.