Hundreds of Central American migrants planning to seek asylum in the United States have reached the Mexican border city of Tijuana as the US military reinforced security measures, laying razor wire and erecting barricades.

About 400 migrants who broke away from the main caravan in Mexico City arrived in the border city of Tijuana on Tuesday by bus. Larger groups are expected to arrive in the coming days, human rights organizations said.

Migrants in the group said they were undeterred by the hostile attitude of the Trump administration, and still aimed to seek asylum.

Pushing his three-year-old daughter in a stroller down the side of a road in Tijuana, Kenny Morán, 23, said that the month-long journey from Honduras had been tough, but he still hoped to reach the US.



Morán and his partner Victoria, 19, left the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa to escape poverty and gang violence, he said.

“It’s not possible to live in Honduras and provide for your family. The gangs don’t let you live, there is no work, and if you have a job you don’t make enough,” he said. “We don’t know anyone in United States, but I heard there’s work in Houston.”

The US defense secretary, Jim Mattis, said he would travel to the border area on Wednesday, his first visit since the military announced that over 7,000 US troops would go to the area as the caravan of mostly Hondurans has made its way through Mexico.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement that it would close lanes at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossings from Tijuana to allow the Department of Defense to install barbed wire and position barricades and fencing. Tijuana, in the Mexican state of Baja California, is at the westerly end of the border, about 17 miles (38km) from San Diego, California.

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“CBP has been and will continue to prepare for the potential arrival of thousands of people migrating in a caravan heading towards the border of the United States,” Pete Flores, the agency’s director of field operations in San Diego, said in a statement, citing a “potential safety and security risk”.

Donald Trump’s administration has taken an aggressive stance against the caravan, which began its journey north on 13 October and briefly clashed with security forces in the south of Mexico early on its route.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A group of LGBT migrants, who separated from the Central American caravan travelling through Mexico, arrives at Tijuana. Photograph: Joebeth Terriquez/EPA

On Friday, Trump signed a decree that in effect suspended the granting of asylum for those who cross the border illegally, a move that could drastically slow claims at gates of entry.

But some of the migrants said they would not give up.

Migrant caravan members unfazed by Trump: 'He'll change his thinking' Read more

“I prefer to be in detention in the United States than to return to my country, where I know they are going to kill me for being different,” said Nelvin Mejía, a transgender woman who arrived in Tijuana on Monday with a group of about 70 people seeking asylum. “Last month, they killed my partner, and I do not want to end up like that.”

Other migrants from the caravan admitted that they did not have any serious hope of gaining asylum. Gustavo, a Guatemalan man who arrived in the city on Tuesday morning, said: “I know I’m not getting asylum: I’m poor and from Guatemala and want a better life – but I know that they aren’t going to give it to me.”

He said he planned to stay in Tijuana “until the hype dies down” – and then seek a way to enter the US.

For years, thousands of mainly Central American immigrants have embarked on long journeys through Central America and Mexico to reach the United States. Many of them die in the attempt or are kidnapped by organized crime groups.

Several thousand more migrants in at least three caravan groups are making their way through Mexico toward the border.

This story includes material from Reuters