By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

The flood of undocumented migrants hoping to force their way into the United States at any cost continued to swell as the haphazard caravan that began as a few thousand Honduran migrants proceeded defiantly north under a blazing sun in southern Mexico on Monday, Oct. 22.

Media estimates now put the engorged caravan at more than 7,000 Central American migrants (with Guatemalan, Salvadorian and Nicaraguan refugees joining the pact), who, despite warnings by U.S. President Donald Trump that he will station the military at the border to prevent their entry into the United States, seem hell-bent on reaching their target destination.

Although Mexican authorities tried to halt their mob entry at the Guatemala border over the weekend, promising due process and asylum applications for those who agreed to an orderly entrance, thousands of migrant men, women and children refused to submit to immigration processing and instead broke down border gates and used brute force to cross into the southern state of Chiapas.

Some also entered illegally by crossing over the Suchiate River in makeshift rafts.

While there have been migrant caravans of Central American refugees passing through Mexico on the way to the U.S. border in the past, this is by far the largest such human convey on record.

Although Mexico’s new president-elect, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has said that he will provide resident visas and jobs to any Central American migrants that enter the country, many Mexicans are concerned that an already-shrinking job market will be made even tighter by the influx of undocumented Central American immigrants.

There is also anger that the Mexican government has provided free shelter, food and medical care to the Central Americans while the majority of the people of Chiapas continue to live in abject poverty with little or no adequate medical care or other vital necessities.

Chiapas is the most backward state in Mexico, with the lowest per capita income, at barely 40 percent of the national median.

The average income for a worker in Mexico is two and a half times greater than the average in Chiapas.