Minors and migrant families increase at border

Daniel Gonzalez | The Republic | azcentral.com

Nick Oza/The Republic

The main organizer of a migrant caravan that traveled through Mexico to the U.S border says his group plans to organize another caravan next year, despite the immense backlash the caravan triggered from President Donald Trump and his administration.

Whether next year's caravan will again travel all the way to the U.S. border is one of the details that still have to be worked out.

But the caravan will take place around the same time as this year, as it has for the past 10 years, said Irineo Mujica, president of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, the transnational group that organized the caravan.

"Are we going to have an action? Yes, we will. Every year, Pueblo Sin Fronteras has got an action and it will involve" a caravan, he said.

The Trump administration's response to this year's migrant caravan was swift and tough, in contrast with previous caravans, which numbered around 100 to 200 migrants, and triggered little attention from the media or action by previous administrations.

{{props.notification}} {{props.tag}} {{props.expression}} {{props.linkSubscribe.text}} {{#modules.acquisition.inline}}{{/modules.acquisition.inline}} ... Our reporting. Your stories. Get unlimited digital access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now

Days after news outlets reported that as many as 1,600 migrants from Central America traveling through Mexico were headed for the United States to apply for asylum, Trump announced he was sending National Guard troops to the Southwest border to help stop people from entering the country illegally.

Calling the migrant caravan a threat to national sovereignty and border security, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions more recently announced a "zero-tolerance" policy to prosecute every person who enters the country illegally and to separate children from parents at the border, a move Sessions said was aimed at deterring families from Central America from coming to the United States.

The migrant caravan also drew criticism from some Republican politicians and groups that advocate for hard-line immigration policies.

Kelli Ward, a Republican Senate candidate campaigning for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., attacked the caravan on Twitter after photos showed migrants from the caravan and their supporters scaling the border fence that divides Tijuana and San Diego and straddling the top.

The migrants were pictured waving Honduran flags.

"This is NOT immigration," Ward tweeted, followed by the hashtags, "#Buildthewall. #EnforceOurLaws."

Photos called unfortunate

The photos were taken on the caravan's last day, when supporters from the United States U.S. and Mexico converged on both sides of border fence where it meets the Pacific Ocean to show solidarity with migrants.

The scene of the migrants climbing the border fence was unfortunate, said Maureen Meyer, director for Mexico and migrants rights at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

The main focus of the caravan was, how do you do things legally, how do you present yourself to U.S. officials the right way, and how do you present yourself to Mexican officials. Maureen Meyer, Washington Office on Latin America

It created the inaccurate perception that the caravan's goal was to help migrants enter the country illegally, she said. Most of the migrants who arrived in Tijuana, however, were trying to apply for asylum the legal way at the designated border crossing at San Ysidro near San Diego, she said.

"The main focus of the caravan was, how do you do things legally, how do you present yourself to U.S. officials the right way, and how do you present yourself to Mexican officials," Meyer said.

"But, unfortunately, with those types of images that narrative gets lost," she said.

Later that same day, however, the Justice Department filed criminal charges for illegal entry against 11 people the agency said were believed to have been part of the caravan after they were caught by the Border Patrol about 4 miles west of the San Ysidro border crossing.

Nick Oza/The Republic

Drastic steps called justified

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a hard-line immigration group, said the migrant caravan pushed the Trump administration to take drastic steps to halt a wave of Central Americans that has been arriving at the Southern border for several years seeking asylum in the United States.

"It seems that it accomplished getting Jeff Sessions to say to these people, 'Look if you are going to try to exploit our humanitarian policies, then we are going to take action against you,'" Mehlman said.

It seems that it accomplished getting Jeff Sessions to say to these people, ‘Look if you are going to try to exploit our humanitarian policies, then we are going to take action against you. Ira Mehlman, Federation for American Immigration Reform

Mehlman said he believes the Central Americans arriving at the border are mainly fleeing poverty. Therefore, they don't meet the standard for asylum, which requires "a fear of persecution at the hands of your government, when generally what is happening in these countries is social breakdown."

"There obviously is empathy towards the situation of people who live in countries like that, not just in Central America and around the world," Mehlman said. "But also recognition that our immigration laws exist for a reason and that everybody in a planet of 7.5 billion people who is living in conditions that aren’t favorable simply cannot come to the United States."

But Brian Griffey, a regional researcher for Amnesty International who traveled to Tijuana as an observer, said people have a right apply for asylum. What the migrant caravan helped show, he said, is the lengths the Trump administration has taken to turn away people arriving at the southern border to apply for asylum, among them the separation of families, and prolonged detentions.

"I think it brought to the surface what has been going on under the cover of darkness for months and years," Griffey said. "All of the abuses we've seen" including the separation of families "are ones we've seen we've already documented before."

Organizers have no regrets

The caravan's organizers, meanwhile, say they have no regrets, despite the Trump administration's reaction. Trump merely used the caravan as an excuse to accelerate his anti-immigrant, "white nationalist" agenda, Mujica said.

"How can women and children who are seeking asylum be a threat? I don’t think any of the things he did or is doing are really something that he would not have done. He just used this caravan to advance his agenda, but it’s got nothing to do with the caravan," Mujica said. "Did the caravan do it? No, it did not."

Pueblo Sin Fronteras Project Coordinator Alex Mensing said he believes the caravan accomplished its goals: Providing safe passage through Mexico for Central American migrants seeking asylum, drawing attention to the conditions that force families to flee their home countries, and galvanizing opposition to U.S. policies in Central America.

Roughly 80 percent of the migrants who joined the caravan this year came from Honduras, a country where gang violence has propelled the murder rate to one of the highest in the world, and where the November re-election of Juan Orlando Hernandez sparked widespread political unrest amid accusations of fraud, corruption and repression.

"Pushing that conversation helps people understand that there is a cycle here that causes people" to flee, Mensing said. "U.S. policy disrupts Central America, people are forced to flee, they are put in danger on their way through Mexico, they are detained in the United States ... and, often times, they are deported ... and then it starts all over again."

Nick Oza, Nick Oza/The Arizona Republic

A 2,500-mile trek

The caravan left Tapachula in the southernmost Mexican state of Chiapas on March 25 and traveled more than 2,500 miles through Mexico on foot, buses and freight trains, before arriving a month later in Tijuana.

After initially being turned away by U.S. border officers, at least 244 migrants from Central America, most of them women and children, were allowed into the United States. The migrants presented themselves to U.S. border officers at the San Ysidro bordering crossing, where they asked to apply for asylum, organizers said.

Another 200 migrants who traveled with the caravan decided to stay in Mexico, where after launching a brief hunger strike, were allowed to apply for visas to live and work in Mexico, organizers said.

As they look ahead toward next year's caravans, organizers acknowledge that the size of the this year's caravan, and Trump's tough response, caught them off guard.

"We were overwhelmed by the size and we were overwhelmed by the attacks of Donald Trump," Mujica said, "So next time we will be prepared for something like that."