translated from Spanish: Migrants and soldiers wait on Guatemala-Mexico border

TECON UMON, Guatemala (AP) — More than 200 migrants, mostly Hondurans, rested on a bridge on the Guatemala-Mexico border waiting for the arrival of others in the hope that forming a larger group will increase their chances of entering the country and follow his way north. Across the river separating Tecún Umán from the border town of Ciudad Hidalgo, soldiers of the Mexican National Guard with anti-riot shields arrived in trucks during Friday afternoon in anticipation of the next migrant movement.

The Mexican government said that migrants entering its territory without registration will not be able to move past the border area. But asylum seekers or other protections will be able to apply for them and legalize their status. Guatemalan officials counted more than 3,000 registered migrants at border crossings in recent days, although others passed without registering. Sonia Eloina Hernández, the mayor of Ciudad Hidalgo, said the authorities were waiting for a large number of migrants to arrive.” We’re getting ready, we don’t know exactly how many people are coming,” he said. About 148 migrants entered Ciudad Hidalgo in recent days and asked for asylum, Hernandez noted. At least 500 more were around Tecún Uman waiting. With the fall of Friday night, migrants tried to sleep on the Guatemalan side of the bridge, their heads resting on their backpacks and children lying among their parents. Wet garments hung from fences. Others killed time playing football on the bank of the Suchiate River.” We have to wait and see what happens,” said Tania Mejía, a 25-year-old Honduran mother who, along with her six-year-old son and her three-year-old daughter, occupied a few square feet next to a tree at the bridge access. Mejia wanted to be one of the first to cross, but considered her desire with the safety of her children and the idea that she could stay behind to see how events unfolded. The memory of the first two migrant caravans she travelled in alone, one at the end of 2018 and the other in the spring of 2019, was still fresh. He knew that the situation could be aggravated if the security forces tried to prevent entry into Mexico.” They say the Mexicans aren’t going to let it go, but who knows?” he said. If necessary, he added, he might have to wade through the river as he did one of the previous times. This time, his goal was not to reach the United States, but in northern Mexico.
“I have a person in Mexicali who can give me a job, so that’s how far I want to get to,” he said.

Mexico didn’t close the bridge on Friday. Migrants who wanted to cross it and apply for asylum or try to regularize their status to find work could do so. But the migrants were suspicious. The Mexican offer of legal status and possible employment includes a clause that would confine them to the south, where wages are lower and there is less employment than in other parts of the nation. Hernandez, the mayor, noted that the country is different now than in 2018 and early 2019, when massive caravans of migrants crossed the border. The government, from the municipal to the federal, is coordinated and prepared, he added. The counciler expected the arrival of more agents in Ciudad Hidalgo “so that people do not pass by the river. Whoever wants to move to Mexico, as our president says, ‘Welcome’, but by the bridge.” In Guatemala’s capital, Mauro Verzzeletti, director of a migrant shelter, said he hoped between 1,000 and 1,500 people would sleep there on Friday. The migrants planned to resume their march around 04:00 in the morning on Saturday. For its part, the office of Guatemala’s Human Rights Defender said that there were just over 1,000 people gathered at another point on the Mexican border, further north, in the Petén region, and that there were reports that Mexican security forces are also they were reinforcing there. In Ciudad Hidalgo, Francisco Garduño, commissioner of the Mexican National Institute of Migration, stressed that migrants trying to enter the country illegally will not be able to go much further.” They can’t get in because it would be a violation of the law,” he told The Associated Press. Although he refused to discuss in detail the deployment of border security, he said there were “enough” effective ones to keep the situation under control.

Original source in Spanish