EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The Mexican authorities is accusing a caravan chief of utilizing “lies and manipulation” and placing in danger the lives of greater than 1,000 migrants marching to the U.S. border.
“The lies and actions of Irineo Mujica, the self-proclaimed chief of the migrant caravan, place in jeopardy the well being, bodily and psychological well-being of the individuals which can be nonetheless a part of this group,” the INM mentioned in an announcement Monday. “(Mujica) has generated animosity towards authorities officers who’ve been turned again and even attacked with sticks and stones once they tried to render support.”
Mujica in late October set out from Tapachula, Chiapas, with 4,000 migrants who rammed via a Nationwide Guard roadblock within the outskirts of the town. He mentioned Tapachula, a metropolis close to the border with Guatemala, had turn out to be an open-air jail for migrants. He’s additionally threatening to assemble a second, bigger caravan within the close by state of Veracruz on Thursday. Each caravans can be heading for Arizona, he mentioned.
The assertion from INM and ongoing Nationwide Guard roadblocks to stop the Central American and Haitian migrants from hitching rides to the U.S. border come days earlier than the presidents of Mexico, the USA and the prime minister of Canada meet in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to handle immigration and different points.
Consultants in U.S.-Mexico relations say the caravans threaten to turn out to be a significant distraction to the Biden administration because it fights for assist on home points and tries to persuade the American public that there isn’t a immigration disaster on the border.
In addition they say the slender Isthmus area of Mexico that the caravan is shortly approaching has been the place the place Mexican authorities have dispersed earlier marches to the U.S. The INM mentioned it has given humanitarian visas to 1,479 migrants who’ve agreed to drop out of the caravan. Mexican information retailers say an equal variety of migrants could have hitched rides to the border alongside the way in which.
On Tuesday, about 1,000 folks remained with Mujica in Matias Romero, Oaxaca.
“They’re determined. They can not cease this caravan, so now they’re attacking me,” Mujica told La Jornada. “I’m being attacked as if I had been the worst of criminals. There isn’t any respect for the work of (migrant) advocates.”
Mujica, a Mexican-American activist for the nonprofit Pueblo Sin Fronteras, mentioned the caravan would arrive in Veracruz on Wednesday.
