Sierra Juarez
January 20, 2020•Update: January 21, 2020
QUERETARO, Mexico
Hundreds of Central American migrants crossed the Suchiate River between Guatemala and Mexico on Monday.
Videos circulating on social media show people walking and running across the shallow water between the two countries. There have been reports that the Mexican National Guard is using tear gas to repel the refugees and migrants.
The border crossers are part of a caravan of about 3,000 migrants mostly from Honduras and El Salvador. About 1,000 migrants arrived in the southern states of Tabasco and Chiapas over the weekend.
Before they arrived, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador offered to the migrants jobs near the border between Guatemala and Mexico.
“There is a way for them to have work. My ideal is full employment – work for everyone...and the right to work guaranteed,” the president said.
Over the weekend, Mexico’s interior ministry announced that the government would allow some of the migrants to stay and work. But, the ministry said, the majority would have to return to their home countries.
“In the majority of the cases, once the particularly migratory conditions are reviewed, the assisted return to their countries of origin will proceed if their situation warrants it,” the interior ministry announced in a statement.
Mexico has cracked down on migration following the threats of United States President Donald Trump to levy tariffs if the country does not reduce the number of refugees and migrants who reach the U.S. border.
