In Guatemala security forces used batons and tear gas to beat back another caravan of deperate migrants bound for the United States.
Between 7,000 and 8,000 migrants, including families with young children, have entered Guatemala since Friday, attempting to flee poverty and violence in a region suffering from the coronavirus pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes in November.
“We want the Guatemalans to let us past,” said Joaquin Ortiz, a Honduran in the caravan. “Because we’re not leaving here. We’re going to carry on. I want to get through because it’s horrible in our country. There’s nothing in Honduras.”
Espinal, a Honduran native explained, “I want a future for my girls … there’s no work over there in Honduras.”
If the migrants do get past, Mexico is preparing to halt them with its security forces.
Those who do reach the US border it is questionable that the newly installed Biden administration will welcome them. A Biden transition official advised the migrants not to make for the United States. Those who are seeking to claim asylum in the first few weeks of the new administration “need to understand they’re not going to be able to come into the United States immediately.” The official also emphasized that any immigration legislation proposed by the Biden administration will be for undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S., not those who are considering arriving now. Migrants “will not find when they get to the U.S. border that from Tuesday to Wednesday, things have changed overnight and ports are all open and they can come into the United States.”
Biden does wish to end the Trump administration practice that required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico, known as the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP), but it will not be allowing all migrants to enter the U.S. at once as soon as Biden takes office, the official said.
“…now is not the time to make the journey,” the official said.