CIUDAD TECÚN UMÁN, Guatemala -- After days of walking and hitchhiking, a crowd of migrants rushed a bridge at Guatemala's border with Mexico on Saturday and clashed with Mexican police who used pepper spray and closed the crossing's large metal gates to keep them out.More than 1,000 migrants
CIUDAD TECÚN UMÁN, Guatemala — After days of walking and hitchhiking, a crowd of migrants rushed a bridge at Guatemala’s border with Mexico on Saturday and clashed with Mexican police who used pepper spray and closed the crossing’s large metal gates to keep them out.
The melee was the latest test of President Andres Manuel López Obrador’s resolve to get tougher on undocumented migration and stop the flow of migrants illegally entering Mexico, many of them trying to make their way to the United States. The showdown on the southern border of Mexico on Saturday involved the vanguard of a mass mobilization of migrants, most of them Hondurans who set off from the northern city of San Pedro Sula earlier in the week as part of a new caravan. They are part of a tradition of mass migrations that have offered safety in numbers to participants.
Story continuesBy some estimates, the current mobilization is also in the thousands. The Guatemalan authorities say that more than 4,000 migrants, part of this scattered caravan, have entered Guatemala from Honduras since Wednesday. Many of them had been expected to arrive in the small Guatemalan border city of Tecún Umán on Saturday or Sunday.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Surge of over 2,000 Central American migrants met by Mexican national guard at borderMore than 2,000 Central American migrants are met by Mexican national guardsmen as they try to cross a bridge from Guatemala into southern Mexico.
Read more »
Democratic lawmakers visit camp in Mexico where migrants wait to claim asylumEighteen members of Congress descended on a Mexican camp sitting near the US border Friday where hundreds of migrants are waiting to claim asylum.
Read more »
Mexican Forces Clash With Migrants at Border With GuatemalaMexican security forces used plastic shields to push back hundreds of Central American migrants who tried to force their way across a border bridge from Guatemala into Mexico.
Read more »
Brief scuffles at Guatemala-Mexico border as migrants try to crossScuffles broke out on the Guatemala-Mexico border as several hundred mostly Honduran migrants pressed forward to cross, only to be pushed back by Mexican security forces
Read more »