Migrant Caravan, Now in Guatemala, Could Pose Early Test for Biden

Hundreds of migrants from Honduras have entered Guatemala and plan to proceed north to the USA, probably posing an early check of the immigration insurance policies of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has pledged to ease the Trump administration’s restrictions on asylum.

After a couple of hundred folks have been capable of push previous the border police on Friday, hundreds extra adopted into Guatemala on Saturday. Officers have mentioned that between 7,000 and 9,000 folks entered the nation, many bypassing coronavirus checks.

The government of Guatemala said that it “regrets this violation of nationwide sovereignty and calls on Central American governments to take actions to keep away from placing their inhabitants, in addition to the communities by which these folks move, in danger within the face of the pandemic.”

The migrants are anticipated to face continued obstacles alongside their route. The Guatemalan authorities arrange checkpoints, blocked components of the caravan not removed from the place it entered Guatemala and will start returning a few of the migrants house by bus, The Associated Press reported.

The Mexican authorities have posted extra troops and immigration officers alongside the nation’s southern border in anticipation of the caravan.

“In our nationwide territory, we’ve got to ensure orderly, protected and common migration, with respect for human rights and humanitarian insurance policies,” Francisco Garduño Yáñez, head of Mexico’s Nationwide Immigration Institute, said in a statement on Friday.

Members of the group instructed reporters they have been pushed to flee crime, poverty and homelessness exacerbated by the pandemic and two hurricanes late final yr.

“Now we have nothing to feed to our kids, and hundreds of us have been left sleeping on the streets,” Maria Jesus Paz, a mom of 4 youngsters, told the Reuters news agency. She mentioned her household had misplaced their house within the storms, forcing them to flee.

“For this reason we make this resolution, despite the fact that we all know that the journey may price us our lives,” she added.

The back-to-back hurricanes that hit Central America in November “destroyed livelihoods in a area that was already dealing with an financial disaster and the place the incomes of hundreds of households had already been significantly decreased as a result of pandemic,” the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross said on Saturday.

The Trump administration made a sequence of offers with Mexico and Central American international locations to bar migrants from reaching the USA. Mark Morgan, the appearing commissioner of Customs and Border Safety, mentioned on Saturday that Guatemala was persevering with to implement that settlement.

“Guatemala continues to assist the regional alliance dedicated to protected, orderly, and authorized migration and shield public well being through the world pandemic,” Mr. Morgan said on Twitter. Guatemala’s immigration company “is already returning caravan members to Honduras after they illegally entered Guatemala.”

Throughout the presidential marketing campaign, Mr. Biden has mentioned he would transfer rapidly to undo the more durable restrictions on asylum enacted by the Trump administration, which disqualified individuals who didn’t search safety on their option to the USA and compelled asylum seekers to attend in Mexico.

On his first day in workplace, Mr. Biden plans to ask Congress for a broad overhaul of immigration laws. That proposal, which can be unveiled Wednesday, features a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants now dwelling in the USA, assist for broken Central American economies and plans to assist folks fleeing violence.

Final month, Mr. Biden, in an effort to avert a rush for the border, cautioned that changes to immigration policy could not be put in place immediately after he takes office and that his administration would want “most likely the subsequent six months” to develop a extra “humane coverage” for processing migrants.



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