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发帖数: 4055 | 1 Migrants decide to depart Mexico City with or without buses
MEXICO CITY — Thousands of Central American migrants decided to depart
Mexico City on Friday and head toward the northern city of Tijuana, opting
for the longer but likely safer route to the U.S. border, caravan organizers
said.
The decision was made late Thursday in a Mexico City stadium where roughly 5
,000 migrants have spent the past few days resting, receiving medical
attention and debating how to proceed with their arduous trek. It came
shortly after caravan representatives met with officials from the local
United Nations office and demanded buses to take them to the border.
Caravan coordinator Milton Benitez told the migrants that they were still
waiting for a response. But he later said to The Associated Press the
officials had offered them buses for women and children but organizers
demanded that they be for everyone. U.N. representatives could not be
immediately reached to confirm this.
The migrants hoped that buses would arrive for them but decided to leave
Mexico City even if they didn't.
On Friday morning, a first group of 200 migrants, impatient and tired of
sleeping on the ground in tents at a Mexico City stadium, broke loose from
the main caravan and took the subway to the outskirts of the capital to
continue their journey north.
For most, it was their first time on a subway, and they were provided with a
police escort and express trains by the city.
Eddy Rivera, a 37-year-old farm worker from Cortes, Honduras, said he couldn
't take staying at the sports complex any longer.
"We're all sick from the cold, from the humidity. We want to leave already,
we have to get to Tijuana," said Rivera, who left behind his four children
and wife in Honduras and wanted to earn money to build a house.
Most migrants had their sights on the central Mexican city of Queretaro,
despite persistent doubts over whether the buses would arrive.
"God, please let the buses arrive, but if not we will walk," said 18-year-
old single mother Delia Murillo who left her girl in Honduras because she
feared for her safety on the trek.
"There will be no buses," said Hector Wilfredo Rosales, a 46-year-old
electrician from Olancho, Honduras, who was traveling with his 16-year-old
son-in-law. "They have lied to us a lot but we will walk like we have done
so far."
Mexico City is more than 600 miles from the nearest U.S. border crossing at
McAllen, Texas, and a previous caravan in the spring opted for the longer
route to Tijuana in the far northwest, across from San Diego. That caravan
steadily dwindled to only about 200 people by the time it reached the border.
"California is the longest route but is the best border, while Texas is the
closest but the worst" border, said Jose Luis Fuentes of the National
Lawyers Guild to gathered migrants.
Rosales said he would have preferred a shorter route "because there are a
lot of women with children with us and it is going to be very hard." But he
agreed with the decision to leave Mexico City and hoped people along the way
would give them lifts.
The migrants said they wanted buses to take them to the U.S. border because
it is too hard and dangerous to continue walking and hitchhiking. Benitez
noted that it would be colder in northern Mexico and it wasn't safe for the
migrants to continue along highways, where drug cartels frequently operate.
"This is a humanitarian crisis and they are ignoring it," Benitez said as
the group arrived at the U.N. office.
The Central American migrants began their arduous trek toward the United
States more than three weeks ago and were turned by President Donald Trump
into a campaign issue in the U.S. midterm elections.
Mexico has offered refuge, asylum or work visas to the migrants, and its
government said 2,697 temporary visas had been issued to individuals and
families to cover them while they wait for the 45-day application process
for a more permanent status.
But most want to continue on toward the United States. Authorities say most
have refused offers to stay in Mexico, and only a small number have agreed
to return to their home countries. About 85 percent of the migrants are from
Honduras, while others are from the Central American countries of Guatemala
, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
On Wednesday, a bus left from Mexico City to return 37 people to their
countries of origin.
There have already been reports of migrants on the caravan going missing,
though that is often because they hitch rides on trucks that turn off on
different routes, leaving them lost.
The U.N. human rights agency said its office in Mexico had filed a report
with prosecutors in the central state of Puebla about two buses that
migrants boarded in the last leg of the trip to Mexico City early this week,
and whose whereabouts are not known.
In Mexico City, the migrants received medical attention and humanitarian
assistance, including food, water, diapers and other basics. They searched
through piles of clothes and grabbed boxes of milk for children.
Marlon Ivan Mendez, a farm worker from Copan, Honduras, waited in line for
donated shoes to replace the worn crocs he has used since leaving his
country three weeks ago. He said he left because gangs were charging him
rent to live in his own home.
Mendez said it wasn't fair that people talk of the migrants as criminals or
bad people with gang members in their midst.
"It is not just that the good ones pay for the sinners," he said. | a********r
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