Thousands of Honduran migrants began walking toward the Guatemalan border before dawn on Friday, driven by poverty and the hope of reaching the U.S. border, where some believe they will receive a warmer welcome from the government of Joe Biden, who will take office on January 20.
The migrants dispersed quickly along the heavily traveled road to the border town of Agua Caliente, but estimates of their numbers ranged from 2,000 to more than double. Around 4 a.m., young men and entire families carrying sleeping children left. Some quickly hitchhiked in vehicles heading in the same direction while others walked down the road escorted by police.
The night before, Santos Demetrio Pineda was one of those who showed up at the bus terminal in San Pedro Sula with little more than the clothes on his back for a long and unpredictable trip, which looked much more difficult due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We lost everything in the hurricane and we can’t be like this, content with what has happened to us,” Pineda explained, referring to one of the two Category 4 hurricanes that hit Honduras in November.
“We are going to go out of the country to ask for help where we are received,” he added.
When asked how they will get through the lines of police and immigration agents already preparing for their arrival, Pineda responded that they are going to “ask God that the doors will open.
The migrants are marching with little certainty as to how far they will go. The governments of the countries they will cross seemed more united than ever to stop their advance.
On Thursday, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute released videos showing hundreds of agents and members of the National Guard exercising on the southern border. He said the agents were on “surveillance in southern Mexican states, mainly in Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche and Quintana Roo, to enforce immigration law.
A call for a new migrant caravan to leave on January 15 has been circulating on social networks for weeks, but previous caravans have been forced to return.
The president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, decreed on Wednesday night the “state of prevention” on the border with Honduras. In his decree, he pointed out the threat of migrants entering the country without proper documentation and without passing the controls because of the pandemic. Guatemala requires a negative coronavirus test to enter. More than 2,000 national police officers and soldiers will wait at the border, he added.
For its part, Mexico reported Wednesday that its government and those of 10 countries in North and Central America were concerned about the health risks posed by COVID-19 among migrants who lack proper documentation.
A communiqué from the Regional Conference on Migration suggests that Mexico and Central America may continue to reject migrants based on the perceived risk of the pandemic.
The group, made up of 11 nations, “expressed concern about the exposure of migrants in an irregular situation to high risk situations for their health and lives, mainly during the health emergency.
Mexican officials said Thursday they discussed migration with Jake Sullivan, whom U.S. President-elect Joe Biden appointed as national security adviser, and raised “the possibility of implementing an emerging program of cooperation for development in northern Central America and southern Mexico, in response to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic and the recent hurricanes that affected the region.
When hundreds of Hondurans tried to assemble a caravan last month, authorities stopped them before they could even reach the Guatemalan border. Other attempts last year were dispersed by Guatemalan authorities before they entered Mexican territory.
