David Agren | Special to USA TODAY

USA TODAY

Johan Ordonez, AFP/Getty Images

HUIXTLA, Mexico – The Central American migrants moving their way through Mexico as part of a controversial caravan is forging ahead in its long journey to the U.S.-Mexico border — albeit with fewer people.

The Mexican government reported late Tuesday that the number of caravan migrants dipped to about 4,500 people, with those dropping out either having applied for asylum in Mexico or having chosen to return home.

Mexico’s Interior Ministry said immigration officials have received 1,699 asylum claims, while 495 Hondurans have asked to be returned to their country of origin. The Central American migrants come mostly from Honduras but also includes those from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The status of about 500 other migrants is unclear. United Nation officials estimated Monday there were more than 7,200 migrants in the caravan.

The caravan has become a hot political issue with the U.S. midterm elections just two weeks away. President Donald Trump has vowed to send U.S. troops to meet the migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and accused Democrats and left-leaning groups of financially-backing the caravan.

Trump has railed about the latest migrant caravan since last week, taking to Twitter to rip the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras for failing to deal with the crisis and threatening to reduce U.S. aid even more to these countries. He also has faulted Mexico, though its government has sent federal police and teamed up with more than 30 U.N. officials to review asylum applications of migrants before they can get to the U.S.

“It’s really unfair to the millions of people that are waiting in line to come in legally into our country,” Trump said during a rambling exchange with reporters at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Tuesday that the caravan is violating Mexico’s laws and the U.S. will not allow it to violate U.S. laws.

Some will say this is a “hardhearted stance,” he said, but the United States is “a historically generous” when it comes to welcoming immigrants.

His message to those in the caravan: “Come here legally.”

“From a security standing, there is no proper accounting of who these individuals are. He said it poses an “unacceptable risk” to the U.S.

Trump told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview aboard Air Force One Monday that he would send as many troops as necessary to the U.S.-Mexican border to block the caravan, calling their trek “an assault on our country.”

The wave of migrants spent Tuesday in the small southern Mexican town of Huixtla, where many camped out on grassy spots in the town square before continuing their grueling trip north. They were at least 1,100 miles from McAllen, Texas, the nearest U.S.-Mexico border entry.

The center of Huixtla, a town of about 30,000 people, was teeming with migrants, who sought shelter from the sun under tarps and on shaded sidewalks. Church groups served food and drink, while locals sold them everything from single cigarettes to coconut treats smothered in hot sauce.

Among the migrants: Kevin Maldonado. The 20-year-old from Honduras said he had walked six hours from Tapachula to Huixtla under a scorching sun, passing through a Mexican immigration checkpoint just before entering Huixtla.

“We’re tired,” he said from the shade of the sidewalk outside a camera store, where he slept the night before. “But the caravan is going to continue.”

Maldonado said he had been picking coffee in western Honduras, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show an outflow of large numbers of migrants. But, he said, a plunge in coffee prices prompted him to consider taking the treacherous trip to the United States.

He said he is not discouraged or dissuaded by Trump’s remarks and threats that the caravan would be stopped by soldiers, if necessary, and remains optimistic he can get to the U.S.

“Maybe he’ll have a change of heart and give us a chance," he said.

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Migrant caravan heads towards the United States

Maldonado says he wasn’t sure how he’d travel to the U.S., which would require transiting Mexico, where crimes against migrants include kidnapping for ransom, extortion and rape.

But he saw a story on a Honduran television news channel about the caravan being organized and thought it was his chance to flee the poverty rampant in his homeland.

Danilo Ruiz, 26, said, he too joined the caravan after seeing a news report on television.

“We were going to leave for the United States in January,” he said while resting in Huixtla with three friends, who all identified as LGBTQ and cited “discrimination and violence” for leaving.

“We saw the news about this caravan, immediately packed our bags and left the next day.”

The caravan started on Oct. 12, with around 120 migrants gathered in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, near the Guatemala border, readying for a long trek to the U.S., according to Honduran television reports. That so many would band together is not unusual because migrants have increasingly left their native countries in larger groups as a defense from criminal gangs that prey on them during the journey through Central America and Mexico. The caravan has already trekked through Guatemala and is passing through southern Mexico.

No single group or person has taken credit for organizing the mass movement of people that numbered at one point more than 7,200, but representatives from Pueblo Sin Fronteras have been quoted often by media outlets as the presumed leaders of the caravan. The group organized a similar, smaller caravan in April.

“There’s no one in charge of this thing,” Alex Mensing, an organizer for Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an immigration rights group, told USA TODAY. “It’s a mass exodus.”

Rodrigo Abeja, who is also with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said extreme poverty and unchecked gang violence have driven migrants to leave their homeland.

“The organizer of this caravan is number one hunger, two death,” he said.

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