Some locals protest the migrant caravan in Playas de Tijuana as the first members arrive

Standing on the beach at the point where Mexico meets the US, Carlos Castellano rested his hand on the fence posts dividing Tijuana from San Diego and smiled broadly.

“I feel so excited. Just getting this far was difficult, but it went well, and people helped us a lot,” he said.

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It was the end of a journey of some 4,900km and more than a month, which began when he fled his home in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa after the MS-13 gang killed one of his brothers and shot and wounded another.

It was also the start of a new challenge: applying for asylum in the US.

“Now we wait. We come in peace, asking for asylum, but only God knows what will happen,” he said as he peered through the steel mesh at a group of US border patrol agents.

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Castellano, 24, is among the first members of the migrant caravan traveling from Central America to reach Tijuana: about 80 members of an LGBT group reached the city on Sunday, 360 more arrived on Tuesday, and another 300 on Wednesday. Several thousand more are expected to arrive in the coming days.

Meanwhile, US authorities have started “hardening” the border crossing, and last week the Trump administration established new measures to restrict asylum requests, by denying asylum to those who cross inbetween ports of entry.

US troops stationed have erected concertina wire, barricades and fencing on the border, and US Customs and Border Protection announced that it would close four lanes at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa border crossings.

And with at least two more caravans of Central Americans following the first group northwards, officials in Tijuana are worried that the border city will not be able to cope.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest LGBT migrants arrive in Tijuana, Mexico, ahead of the first caravan of Central Americans en route to the US on 11 November. Photograph: Joebeth Terriquez/EPA

Thousands of people are already waiting in the city to claim asylum in the US, and even before the arrival of the first groups from the caravan, resources for migrants were stretched thin, said César Palencia, director of the Tijuana municipal migration affairs office.

“We are trying to find shelter space for people, but we are worried. The shelters are 90% or more full. Right now we are looking into other options – maybe a soccer field, or other public space,” he said. “We definitely feel abandoned by Mexico’s federal government. We requested extra funds and a coordination strategy from them and still nothing.”

The UN refugee agency and Red Cross have recently set up offices in the city and local volunteers, mostly from church groups, have been donating food and clothing to the newly arrived migrants.

Most of the recent arrivals have been put up in a temporary shelter in a sports center in the north of the city where city employees had set up rows of mattresses and blankets for 360 migrants on the floor of a gymnasium.

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Among Tijuaneros, opinions of the migrants are mixed. The city has long been a staging post for Mexicans heading north – and more recently for travelers from much further afield. Since 2016, more than 15,000 Haitians have come to the city, paving the way for a cautious welcome from some locals.

Víctor Coronel, head of the migrant affairs unit of the Tijuana police, said: “We haven’t had any problems with the Haitians. They came and they worked – it’s two years later and I’m still shocked at how great they’ve been – I hope the same for this group.”

Linda Borde, a 41-year-old call center supervisor, cast an appraising eye on a group of migrants from the caravan who had gathered on the beach.

“If they came to work, if they are going to make the city better, like the Haitians, they are more than welcome,” she said. “Most likely a lot of them won’t be able to cross. So if they are going to stay here, it should be at least to find a future for themselves.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Central American migrants near the US-Mexico border fence in Playas de Tijuana on 13 November. Photograph: Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images

But not all locals are as welcoming; some have even responded in terms similar to those employed by the caravan’s most prominent enemy, Donald Trump.

On Wednesday evening, residents protested in Playas de Tijuana, an affluent neighborhood by the beach where some of the migrants had set up camp.

“They entered the country violently, they are demanding services, they are smoking marijuana, who knows what,” said Tere Lamas, a longtime resident. “The United States already said they can’t come, so what’s going to happen?”

Later that night, locals moved down to where the migrants were sleeping, chanting “Out of Tijuana” and “Mexico has its own problems”, and singing the Mexican national anthem. Scuffles broke out as screaming protesters threatened and attacked local residents defending the group, along with journalists and the migrants themselves.

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Arnoldo Astorga, a member of a local vigilante group, said the residents had called his group. “This is like an invasion. It looks and smells like an invasion. They come over here with no respect.”

Throughout the protest, other locals quietly handed out tacos to migrants sitting nearby.

Meanwhile, at the border, other migrants continue to wait in line to apply for asylum. Some have been here for months, and between them they maintain a waiting list to control the process.

Currently the list has some 3,000 names, said Joel Coyado, 27, who fled political unrest in Nicaragua. The recent arrivals will just have to wait their turn, he said.

“We are all waiting here, waiting to apply for asylum. They will have to do the same, some have already gotten here, but they cannot get in if they do not get on the list.”

Many caravan members plan to apply for asylum, including the group of 80 LGBT migrants.

“I’m not sure how the asylum process will go, but I hope that the United States lets us in,” said Loly Méndez, a trans woman from El Salvador. “I have been violently assaulted, robbed, discriminated against so I can’t get work, I’ve had friends killed – I can’t go back there.”

But others are well aware that not everyone can get asylum.

“We came to work. I know I’m not getting asylum because they don’t give you asylum for hunger,” said Carlos José Romero, 20, from Santa Rosa, in Honduras, who arrived on Tuesday night. “But us on the caravan would rather die fighting than sitting in Honduras waiting to starve or be killed. If they deport us we’ll come right back.”