A caravan comprising thousands of potential unlawful migrants has been making its way north as the U.S. and Mexico discuss the ongoing crisis at the border.
An estimated 6,000 people are making their way through Mexico to the U.S. as part of the caravan, with the majority of them being from Central America, Venezuela, and Cuba, according to ABC News.
The group departed from the city of Tapachula, located near the Guatemala-Mexico border, and is the largest to travel to the U.S. since June 2022.
Jessica García is from Venezuela and said that the trip has been difficult.
“This journey has been really hard for us migrants. We need the [Mexican] immigration office and the government to have some pity on us, and give us a safe conduct pass,” explained García to The Associated Press.
While the caravan continues to travel north, the U.S. discussed options for managing the crisis with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a meeting on Wednesday, as The Dallas Express reported.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s office said in a statement ahead of the meeting that he would “discuss unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere and identify ways Mexico and the United States will address border security challenges, including actions to enable the reopening of key ports of entry across our shared border.”
Luis García Villagrán, an activist who helped set up the caravan, said he expected little to be accomplished in the meeting since it “will be between fools and fools, who want to use women and children as trading pieces.”
“We are not trading pieces for any politician,” said Villagrán, according to The AP.
“What Mexico wants is the money, the money to detain and deport migrants.”
This caravan comes amid a growing influx of unlawful migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, with record-high numbers of encounters being reported.
Anna Giaritelli, a Homeland Security & Immigration reporter for the Washington Examiner, stated last week that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had a record-high of 14,509 encounters with unlawful migrants in a single day.
Gov. Greg Abbott has attempted to manage the crisis by busing unlawful migrants to sanctuary cities across the country, with more than 85,000 people being bused since the initiative began in April 2022, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Abbott has since escalated this process by flying more than 120 unlawful migrants to Chicago last week.
Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for the governor, said this decision is due to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “failing to live up to his city’s ‘Welcoming City’ ordinance by targeting migrant buses from Texas,” as reported by The Dallas Express.
