Tecún Umán (Guatemala).- Thousands of people who make up the migrant caravan heading to the United States stayed on Monday in uncertainty about their fate, after they decided to go down to the Suchiate River to cross Guatemala’s border with Mexico and were repelled by the Mexican authorities. At least two-thirds of the thousands of migrants forcibly attempted to enter Mexico, which decided to close the border in order to prevent the free transit of Central Americans, mostly Hondurans, who yearn to reach the United States to get out of poverty and violence in their countries.
The migrants were contained by the Mexican National Guard, who came to use pepper spray to disperse the hardest-lined, who even beat stones at the agents
Thousands of people try to cross the Suchiate River into Mexico. / EFE.
Among the migrants there are those who question whether to follow the path, try to enter Mexico one by one without documentation, return to their countries of origin or apply to the Mexican authorities, as noted Efe.. The Guatemalan Office of Human Rights observed the daytime activity on and below the Rodolfo Robles bridge on the Suchiate River and reported that it supported a Salvadoran who wished to return to his country, accompanied the Red Cross in the care of a child with disabilities and saw the actions of the Guatemalan Institute of Migration, who offered an assisted return to those who wished. Some migrants stood in front of the beach that he sees towards Mexico, others sat down, threw blankets and went swimming in the river. Others decided to return to the city of Ayutla, adjacent to the Tecún Umán border, waiting to make a decision, because, as a Honduran man put it,” “there is nothing to negotiate.” The representative of the Mexican National Migration Institute in the southeastern state of Chiapas, Carmen Yadira, argued that “the legal provisions do not establish a migration quality of transit, which is why it is not possible to positively give your request” to allow the caravan to pass in its transfer to the United States.In a press release, the National Migration Institute clarified that “federal migration agents will transfer to the stations and stays of migration to any foreign person who does not credit a regular stay condition,”The INM reported this weekend that they have treated a total of 1,087 migrants, Of which 663 were in this border area of Chiapas, and 424 in the town of El Ceibo, in Tabasco.However, the INM also indicated that in most cases the assisted return will be made to their countries of origin when the situation “so warrants”, once their immigration status has been reviewed. The migrant caravan left Honduras last week from San Pedro Sula and according to official data more than 4,000 Hondurans crossed Guatemala to reach the mexican border.
