https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/16/thousands-hondurans-advance-on-foot-us-bound-caravan
Guatemalan security forces have been having conflicts with hundreds Hundorian asylum seekers and migrants as they travel by caravan on the way to the United States. On Saturday police and soldiers, who were wearing helmets, shields, and using bats, formed ranks across a highway in Vado Hondo, Chiquimula, a village near the Honduras border, to try and deviate the progression of the migrants. A video that was distributed by Guatemala’s immigration agency showed hundreds of migrants fighting with police and soldiers. Simultaneously, other troops were holding hundreds more back from joining in.“A small group got through and the rest were detained. The people who got past have been located,” said Alejandra Mena, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s immigration agency. Approximately 6,000 migrants were able to make their way past the armed forces that were stationed on the border on Friday. 3,000 more made it through on Saturday. None of the migrants presented a negative covid test either which is required by the Guatemala government to enter the country.
I think this can become an issue for a lot of people and countries. For starters 9,000 people traveling through several countries are going to have economic impact on the local and national level government. The migration of these people is also going to have effects on the health of the locals and the other people involved. Being that 9,000 people are violent with police will evidently cause casualties. It is also going to have huge effects on the number of covid cases everywhere they go. Based on how easily it is spread and how unexpectedly deadly it can be, 9,000 untested people will spread the disease and death quicker than these countries can handle.
From an international relations standpoint this is going to have huge regional effects. For starters the caravan has already made its way into Guatemala, which is obviously starting to have it’s effects. Guatemala is not the most economically stable country to begin with and 9,000 foriegn migrants travelling through it by car means that people will need to stop to obtain food how they can. Chances are if one in every nine people stop in the same town that is 1,000 people, mix that with them not being tested, that amounts to a huge super spreading event which will happen from Guatemala all the way up through Mexico and evidently into the United States.