{"id":2191,"date":"2018-10-18T01:23:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T01:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/?p=2191"},"modified":"2018-10-18T01:23:46","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T01:23:46","slug":"trump-threatens-to-cut-aid-to-honduras-over-migrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/2018\/10\/18\/trump-threatens-to-cut-aid-to-honduras-over-migrants\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens to cut aid to Honduras over migrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump has threatened to cut financial aid to Honduras over a large group of migrants heading towards the US border.<\/p>\n

In a Tweet posted on Tuesday, Mr Trump said the country’s president was told funds would be cut “immediately” if the group was not stopped and returned.<\/p>\n

Honduras has a long history of poverty and corruption. It also has one of the highest murder rates in the world.<\/p>\n

The group of at least 1,500 migrants grew rapidly in size over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump later also warned Honduras’s neighbours, Guatemala and El Salvador, that their governments could face their funds being cut if they allowed the migrants to pass through their countries on their way north.<\/p>\n

About 160 people originally set off on Friday from San Pedro Sula, a notorious Honduran crime hotspot.<\/p>\n

They pushed across the border into Guatemala on Monday, despite a heavy police presence and government order attempting to block their route.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Mr Trump’s tweet, it was reported that Bartolo Fuentes, one of the caravan’s organisers and a former Honduran legislator, had been detained by Guatemalan authorities to be deported back to Honduras.<\/p>\n

This is the second time Mr Trump has threatened Honduras’s aid over migrants, in April saying it was “in play” over another group.<\/p>\n

The US sent more than $175m (\u00a3130m) to the country in 2016 and 2017,<\/a>according to the US Agency for International Development.<\/p>\n

Officials in Mexico and the US have been monitoring the migrants, who have formed what is known as “a caravan”, over the past few days, and issuing warnings about their rights to enter their countries.<\/p>\n

Last week, Vice President Mike Pence urged Central American countries to do more to prevent mass migration.<\/p>\n

“Tell your people: don’t put your families at risk by taking the dangerous journey north to attempt to enter the United States illegally,” Mr Pence said.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Honduras foreign ministry urged its citizens against joining the caravan, dismissing it as a political ploy to ” to disrupt the governability, stability and peace of our countries”.<\/p>\n

Why did they leave Honduras?<\/h2>\n

Honduras, which has a population of about nine million, has endemic problems with gang violence, drug wars and corruption.<\/p>\n

According to the World Bank,\u00a0more than 60% of the population lives in poverty<\/a>, with one in five people living in extreme poverty.<\/p>\n

The country is led by\u00a0President Juan Orlando Hernandez – who was re-elected in November 2017 in a contested vote\u00a0<\/a>which led to election violence and protests.<\/p>\n

Jari Dixon, a Honduran politician, Tweeted on Monday (in Spanish)<\/a>\u00a0that the caravan was not “seeking the American dream” but “fleeing the Honduras nightmare”.<\/p>\n