Guatemala bus more migrants back to Honduras; small groups go on to Mexico

A once-large caravan of Honduran migrants moving to Guatemala last week disappeared in the face of Guatemalan security forces by Tuesday. Small groups insisted on the Mexican border, while others accepted trips from authorities to Honduras.

Many of the migrants were driven by an increasingly desperate situation in Honduras, where the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic and two major hurricanes piled up on top of chronic poverty and gang violence in November. This, combined with a hope that the new US government of Elected President Joe Biden would be more welcoming, gave birth to the year’s first caravan.

GUATEMALAN FORCES CLEAR WAY OF MIGRANTS BONDED TO US, SOME AGREE TO RETURN TO THE HONDURAN BORDER

But on Tuesday, buses carrying dozens of migrants and hand-held police patrol vehicles sporadically arrived at the El Florido border crossing between Guatemala and Honduras through the morning. They were transferred from Guatemalan border agents to their counterparts in Honduras and then boarded buses that would take them to their hometowns.

About 25 kilometers into Guatemala, where hundreds of migrants have been stranded at a roadblock in Vado Hondo for several days, traffic was running smoothly on Tuesday and few migrants remained. The immigration authorities in Guatemala reported that more than 2300 migrants were returned to Honduras by Monday.

Carlos Hernandez, a 29-year-old shoemaker from Honduras, was sitting next to the road and could not move forward and without any reason to go back.

“I lost everything, children, home, everything,” Hernández said in tears, referring to the hurricanes. “Everyone is dead there, I have nothing. To whom am I going to return?”

Eber Sosa, an 18-year-old mason, expressed the hope of many that something would change with the new US government.

PRAYER DHS CHOOSE ON MIGRANT CARAVAN: ‘THERE IS AN OBLIGATION TO FOLLOW OUR ASYLUM LAWS’

“Now that the new president (Biden) is here, we are waiting for the answer, all of our immigrants coming from Honduras,” Sosa said. “We want to see what the new president says to move forward.”

If the government of Guatemala did indeed dissolve the year’s first caravan, it would be a relief to the incoming US government. Biden has promised immigration reform, but is currently planning to put the Trump-era border policy in place, for fear of a resurgence of migrants when he takes office.

The Guatemalan government has made it clear that it will stop the caravan for immigration and health reasons before setting it up in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, last week. President Alejandro Giammattei said 2,000 police and soldiers would be sent to the border.

These forces did not stop the caravan at the border, but a series of strategic roadblocks where forces deployed tear gas and dismantled the masses of people.

Michael Kozak, acting assistant secretary of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, on Tuesday praised Guatemala via Twitter for “carrying out its responsibilities by responding appropriately and legally to the recent trek.”

Central American migrants increasingly began turning to caravans in 2018 as a cheap alternative to hiring a smuggler. Migrants have some security in numbers and initially pushed successfully through Guatemala and Mexico. However, the US government has led an effort to coordinate a more aggressive response from countries along the way to try to stop them from advancing far.

Caravans still represent only a fraction of the total immigration flow that moves largely unnoticed.

In recent years, Guatemala has become a critical bulwark against caravans, tossed around by the Trump administration’s more aggressive immigration policies. Guatemalan forces effectively resolved several migrating caravans last year.

In Tecun Uman, across the Suchiate River from Mexico, Rev. Fernando Cuevas said Tuesday there were no more than 70 migrants in the border town. Those who arrive there do so in small groups, mostly family units, and try to cross over to Mexico almost immediately.

Some go to the bridge to seek asylum, while others try to cross the river.

Where hundreds of migrants gathered last January before moving to Mexico, this time Guatemala’s highway blockades stopped the most. Most of those who got through it had the required proof of a negative coronavirus test and passports, Cuevas said.

Cuevas said both sides of the river were militarized. In Tecun Uman, Guatemala has deployed a large number of national police who have made a local community center their barracks and patrol the streets in search of migrants. Two Mexican government buses are sitting in the central square in front of his church waiting to drive migrants back to the Honduras border, he said.

“We see a situation a little different from other years when migrants had access and free transportation,” Cuevas said. His church had prepared for the arrival of migrants like a year before, but now he expects few to make it. “We do not expect them in large numbers or organized. We do not expect more than 100 to be here simultaneously.”

Mexico sent thousands of members of the national guard and immigration agents to the border last week in preparation. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised to respect human rights, but also to enforce an orderly, legal migration.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

A year ago, Mexican troops in riot gear gathered hundreds of Central American migrants as they rested along a rural highway after entering the country.

___

Associated Press journalist Oliver de Ros reported this story in El Florido and the AP writer, Christopher Sherman, author of the AP, reported from Mexico City.