Second migrant caravan forms as many seek asylum in Mexico

World Today

A second migrant caravan is forming in Guatemala and heading for the United States border.

Some estimates said up to 2000 people have joined.

They’re preparing to move toward Guatemala’s border with Mexico.

Meanwhile 7000 people, mostly Hondurans, are on the move in southern Mexico.

President Donald Trump has threatened to close the U.S. southern border and cut off financial aid to Central American countries if the migrants aren’t stopped.

CGTN’s Franc Contreras reports, many migrants are seeking asylum in Mexico.

Another day of waiting for David Canales and his three little children. They fled Honduras because of what he calls a plague of criminal violence and wide-spread poverty.

“In our country there is nothing. We have to flee from there. Our President does not help. There is no functioning economy. I have these three rug rats who need food daily,” said David Canales a Honduran migrant.

Back in Honduras, he was a fisherman in the Lobster industry but the company, like so many others, went broke. The family has been in Mexico for nearly two months.

On this day, his wife Sandy Martinez has been inside this government office for five hours filling out paperwork, for the third time. They hope to get asylum status, which would allow them to live and work in Mexico.

If they are not granted asylum, the family plans to join the migrant caravan and, though they have no visas, try to make their way into the United States.

Three more hours go by, and Canales decides to go find his wife.

They sit and wait another half hour. Canales worries about how they’ll pay for food today.

This might be the day their asylum claim will be granted, But she is told to return again tomorrow.

“After so much time and effort, nothing. We just want to work and they will not give us permission to do that because we have no immigration or identification documents,” said Sandy Martinez the Honduran migrant.

It’s time for them to return to the migrants’ shelter where they will spend another night on the floor and wake up tomorrow hoping for something to go their way.


Peter Hakim discusses the migrant caravan and immigration crisis of America

CGTN’s Asieh Namdar spoke with Peter Hakim, president emeritus and senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue about the migrant caravan coming from Honduras.