MEXICO CITY — Bartolo Antonio Fuentes: Hero or villain?

He's been accused of attacking the U.S. by orchestrating a massive immigrant caravan headed for the southwest border to seek asylum in what President Donald Trump has called an "invasion."

But to many of the migrants who joined the massive caravan, Fuentes is a leader who guided them out of their country in search of opportunity and away from violence and poverty.

In a recent interview in Mexico City, Fuentes, a former left-leaning Honduran legislator and radio host, denied both descriptions of himself. He says he's simply a reflection of his countrymen, who are fed up with economic crisis and a corrupt and indifferent government. As the massive caravan of immigrants departed last week from Mexico City and resumed its long trek to the U.S., Fuentes warned that more are coming in a cycle that will continue until political and economic conditions improve.

Hondurans, Fuentes said, are not different from immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and other parts of Eastern Europe who also left their homes in search of a better life. Here is an excerpt of an interview conducted at the sports complex in Mexico City where thousands of migrants were camping out, resting and getting medical care before resuming the journey to the border:

Q: What was your objective in being part of this caravan?

A: Well, I have no objective. I'm not the organizer. The objective of the people is to flee Honduras because of the economic situation, insecurity and the lack of hope that things will change.

Q: Are people leaving to look for jobs?

A: All leave to search for work. All want to work and stay in Honduras, but the conditions do not exist for Hondurans to work, either because of harassment or extortions. People have no land to work on, and the cost of living is too high.

Bartolo Fuentes, a left-leaning former Honduran legislator, has been accused of organizing a massive caravan of migrants bound for the United States, a charge he denies. (Alfredo Corchado / Staff )

Q: So is it jobs or insecurity that's pushing them out of Honduras?

A: Both things. It's the same thing. How can I work if they're going to extort me? If I want to work here, or there, be a cabdriver, own a business, I have to pay an extortion. And you can't complain to police because the police are also involved.

Q: President Trump said they're criminals.

A: All want to work, simply work, except the children, of course. But I haven't screened every single one. Maybe there's one, five, 10 who may have a criminal record, but you cannot generalize a group of 7,000 people, calling them all criminals. And if you have a few tattooed people, you can't condemn them. If the Americans think that gangs are headed their way, they are wrong. Because it's the other way around. Gangs were formed in the U.S. and they're being deported back to Central America, where they create havoc.

Q: So is the caravan being used as a punching bag?

A: Yes, and it's to generate a bad portrayal of them, to use them for political means. And they became the perfect punching bag just before the midterm elections. Fortunately, I don't think the strategy worked.

Q: What role does the U.S. economy play in pushing Central Americans north?

A: The U.S. economy is generating many jobs, and many of the jobs require cheap labor. There is hypocrisy in the United States. If immigrants left the United States, the U.S. economy collapses.

Q: Mid- to long-term, what is the solution?

A: The solution is to leave us alone. Let us build our own country, construct our own future. Let us develop our own economy, away from U.S. influence. The U.S. controls some of our best lands. They have military bases throughout the country. They provide weapons to fight criminals groups. Why do we want weapons? We need tractors to cultivate the land. The U.S role in Central America remains huge. They control our future.

Central American migrants moved toward the United States between Zapopan and Tequila in the Mexican state of Jalisco on November 13. (Ulises Ruiz / Agence France-Presse)

Q: Do you expect more caravans to head north?

A: I see through social media that more are already planned. I just saw one planned for January 15, conveniently after the holidays. They want to spend Christmas with their families and then leave. This caravan [he shows something on his cellphone] leaves at 5 a.m. on the 15th, right near the Guatemalan border.

Q: So it's not you who's organizing this?

A: No. I tell journalists all the time, and maybe they don't believe me, but if you go to some of these small towns throughout Honduras and you ask around, you will find many people who are already organizing themselves, coordinating their departure. Some groups coincide their departure on the same day, and that may be why some are bigger than others. Some wait to spend a birthday with their son, or daughter, wait to see if the harvest season yields any fruits before deciding to leave, but in the back of their mind, they hold on to the option of heading north. That's their last hope.

Q: What do you tell Americans who by reading this will say you are only generating more fear by saying more caravans are coming?

A: I would remind them of their own history. This migration will continue because this has happened over thousands of years. Migration is nothing new. Are you telling me all Anglo-Saxons were born in the United States? No, their ancestors came from across the ocean to take over the land of the indigenous. So why are Americans afraid of migration? There were millions of Europeans who fled wars, poverty. What we see here is selective discrimination. Because they're from Central America. Trump has asked why aren't they from places like Norway, Sweden? Americans are not necessarily rejecting immigrants. They are rejecting the poorest from Central America. This is not xenophobia. It's poverty-phobia. It's the same in Mexico. If you come here to spend your money, you're welcome. Poor Central Americans, not so much.

Q. Are Central Americans being discriminated against in Mexico? [At the time of the interview, Fuentes had been arguing that Mexican government officials and international agencies should provide free transportation to Hondurans, whom he referred to as "Central American refugees."]

A: Venezuelans [more than a million have fled Venezuela] are received at the border with Ecuador with buses, and they're crossed all the way to Peru, where they want to go. But Hondurans are treated as though they're criminals. If they believe they qualify for asylum, help them get to the border to ask for asylum. But no, even before they get to their destination, they are told 'You don't qualify for asylum' and are threatened with being deported. There is no reason to criminalize them. They have no reason to use them as theater, as a spectacle, when these are humble, hard-working people headed for the United States, many of them on foot, or with the help of individual Mexicans.

1 / 4Central American migrants climbed aboard a truck on the road between Zapopan and Tequila, in the Mexican state of Jalisco, on Nov. 13.(Alfredo Estrella / Agence France-Presse) 2 / 4U.S. Border Patrol agents, left, speak with two Central American migrants as they sit atop the border structure separating Mexico and the United States, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, in Tijuana, Mexico. A few hundred migrants in the caravan of Central Americans made it to the U.S. border this week, catching rides on buses and trucks for hundreds of miles in the last leg of their journey Wednesday as the first sizable groups began arriving in the border city of Tijuana. (Gregory Bull / AP) 3 / 4Preparing for the evening, many of the migrants just setup for the evening where they could find an available spot along the walk ways near the U.S. Mexico border on Nov. 14, 2018.(Nelvin C. Cepeda / TNS) 4 / 4A man on the U.S. side of the border, top, works on the border structure as a man looks on, at the beach seen from Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018(Gregory Bull / AP)

Sorry, we didn't recognize the link you were trying to embed.