Mexico to Continue Facilitating Caravan Travel to US Border
Mexico’s new government has started laying out its vision for immigration, especially regarding the huge flow of migrants journeying north from Central America to the U.S. border.
Olga Sánchez Cordero, secretary of the interior for Mexico, said she expects the number of Central American migrants entering Mexico to reach at least 700,000 a year over the next several years.
“Today, the new migration model, the safest model for migrants, is through caravans. It’s a new phenomenon that we had not previously experienced,” Cordero said at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington on Feb. 28, through a translator.
“In fact, we need to look at who is promoting caravans, what organizations are promoting them, know who the leaders of these caravans are, how people are recruited from Honduras, the leaders of these caravans are recruited, and how this migratory movement occurs. It is unusual, but soon will become normal—caravans coming towards the north.”
Cordero said members of San Diego-based Pueblos Sin Fronteras (“People Without Borders”) are involved.
“Now, for example, we identify the leaders first of all of nongovernmental organizations that are recruiting these caravans. There are some from Pueblo Sin Fronteras, for example. We are identifying people,” she said.
“Some of the leaders as well who were managing this illegally, this is a huge business. Smuggling people is a huge business.”
In response to Cordero’s comments, Pueblo Sin Fronteras denied that it’s behind the formation of the caravans, although it has led caravans from Central America to the United States for years.
“Our organization has not participated in the organization of any migrant caravan since the inauguration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. We have never organized or recruited any caravan from Central America,” the group wrote on its Facebook page on Feb. 28.
However, on Nov. 26, 2018, the day after more than 1,000 migrants rushed at the border in Tijuana, Mexico, and attempted to force their way into the United States, Pueblos Sin Fronteras wrote on Facebook: “As an organization, we accompanied two migrant caravans in 2017 and one in the spring of 2018.
“Hundreds of Central American people participating in these caravans received legal advice from lawyers and volunteer lawyers about their options for regularization, shelter, and asylum both in Mexico as in the United States.”
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