The Mexican government is reportedly stationing hundreds police and immigration agents at its southern border with Guatemala in advance of the arrival of a 2,000-person caravan of Hondurans that is traveling to the United States, according to one report. Another report indicates that Mexican immigration agents are trying to prevent migrants from accessing U.S. ports of entry.
The caravan from Honduras arrived in Guatemala early this week. The group was comprised of 160 people when it left but the number has grown to 2,000. It is the second major caravan of Central American citizens to seek U.S. entry this year.
Mexico’s Interior Ministry announced that only those holding visas will be allowed to enter the country. That means the group will first have to try apply for visas at the Mexican consulate in Honduras.
DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman told the Washington Examiner that the nation’s “de facto open borders” encourages migrants to form such caravans. She said loopholes in asylum law allow families and minors from noncontiguous countries to be released after they claim “credible fear” at the border.
The Texas Observer reports immigration attorneys filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging a conspiracy between U.S. and Mexican immigration agents to prevent asylum-seekers from presenting themselves at a U.S. port of entry. The petition claims that Mexican immigration officials have been stopping asylum-seekers from entering the port if they do not have Mexican travel documents. These migrants are then detained and at times deported. If some migrant are able to enter the port, U.S. officials allegedly call their counterparts to pick them up.
An immigration attorney involved in the filing told the Observer the United States is unlikely to respond to any ruling by the Inter-American Commission because the government rejects it authority.
