The largest-ever migrant caravan is beginning its trek to the US-Mexico border. The estimated number of migrants in the caravan ranges from about 11,000 to 15,000. Most of them are women and children. The news of the caravan comes at a particularly awkward time for the Biden administration. Biden’s Summit of the Americas is supposed to begin Monday in Los Angeles.
The Guardian:
“This is the largest mass human migration I have seen in at least the past 10 years,” said Luís Villagrán, an organizer of the caravan and director of the non-profit Center for Human Dignification.
The largest number of migrants in the caravan come from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua – three countries whose authoritarian rulers Joe Biden has conspicuously refused to invite to the summit. But there are also Haitians, Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans and even citizens of India, Bangladesh, and several African countries.
Earlier this month, the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM), wrote to Villagrán, expressing sympathy for the caravan’s members and pledging to help the most vulnerable among them. The letter also acknowledges that the caravan is a result of the stunning tsunami of migration from nearly every country in the Americas to the United States in the past few years, attributing this migration to elevated rates of violence and economic instability in the continent.”
Thousands of Haitian migrants recently trekked to the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo, hoping to claim asylum in the United States if Title 42 is lifted, although many have already given up and left, Border Report has learned.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat whose hometown of Laredo is across the border, said Wednesday that about 3,500 Haitian asylum-seekers have arrived in Nuevo Laredo, and are still in the city.
However, Rebecca Solloa, executive director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Laredo, told Border Report that about 1,400, mostly Haitian men, recently left Nuevo Laredo for the industrial city of Monterrey, the capital of the state of Nuevo León, where they hope to find work. She said the women and children were left at the shelters in Nuevo Laredo.
But plans are still on for even those groups to hit the US the moment title 42 drops.
Erica Carlin is an independent journalist, opinion writer and contributor to several news and opinion sources. She is based in Georgia.
