![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/5c068d9a36b94b28bcdcc4329caafcd07736d2d4\/0_185_3500_2100\/master\/3500.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=b2c6ffca5ee4f2f029b73ddf17384b07\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u2018No way to live here\u2019: new Honduran caravan sets off north as Trump blasts warnings<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n Read more<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf they were protecting us, they\u2019d be facing the other way round,\u201d said Alex Torres, 20, as he gripped the chain-like fence around the factory. He spoke in perfect English, having been taken to the US at the age of four, and his plan was to return to his family in Indiana after being deported to Honduras last year. \u201cImagine being deported to a war<\/a> zone,<\/a>\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMigrants \u2013 from Central America and beyond \u2013 are increasingly seeking safety in numbers as they make the dangerous passage through Mexico<\/a>. But the caravans are receiving somewhat rough receptions at border towns like Piedras Negras where locals react with suspicion and officials struggle to house and feed so many newcomers.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe problem has been exacerbated by the Trump administration\u2019s clampdown on the asylum system: at many ports of entry, US authorities have imposed a limit on the number of people who can apply for asylum each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/d1483810d57b55f539df6f49d399f3f6a1051b25\/0_0_4000_2401\/master\/4000.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=c7930e9b5f62394baaf13a4a73eacd3e\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFleeing home alone: the migrant children blocked at Mexican border<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n Read moreAdvertisement<\/a>SPONSORED BY HALLMARK<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nMake Little Ones Feel So Very Loved On Valentine’s Day.Show Them They’re Special With A Hallmark Card That Hides A Surprise Inside. SHOP NOW<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The policy, known as \u201cmetering\u201d, means that impoverished travellers are being forced to wait for weeks or even months<\/a> \u2013 often in border towns plagued with violence and criminal activity. In small towns like Piedras Negras, local authorities and migrant shelters run by churches and NGOs are often unready to deal with the sudden surge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cMetering puts a lot of stress on the local civil society and municipal governments,\u201d said Stephanie Leutert, the director of the Mexico<\/a> Security Initiative at the Strauss center at the University of Texas. \u201cThe backlog is also creating another floating population that could be preyed upon by criminal groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Daniela](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/8fd4a1eecd77efe4b03a51fe2b5c96e1eecae9a9\/0_71_2340_1404\/master\/2340.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=59d7bff5376fefd35371bf862e6c6720\")
<\/a> Daniela Fernanda Portillo Burgos sits on the shoulders of her mother, Iris Jamilet, 39, as they look out through the fence of a immigrant shelter in Piedras Negras. Photograph: Jerry Lara\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAs Donald Trump fulminated about a \u201ccrisis\u201d at the border in his State of the Union speech last week, US officials were beefing up security at the international bridge linking Piedras Negras with its Texan twin city Eagle Pass. New gates topped with concertina wire were installed on the bridge while border guards patrolled the bridges and the banks of the Rio Grande.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US officials in Eagle Pass are now accepting only 15 asylum requests a day \u2013 and even fewer cases if they have to process any migrants caught swimming across the river, according to Elizabeth C\u00e1rdenas, a migrant advocate in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That means a long wait looms for the newcomers. \u201cThey\u2019re probably going to have to spend five, six or seven months here,\u201d said Israel Rodr\u00edguez, a Baptist pastor, whose congregation provides meals for migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities in the city have offered a grudging welcome to the migrants, who have been held in the abandoned factory in an industrial quarter. Officials say they are only being held while they apply for a humanitarian visa which would allow them to work and access benefits \u2013 though most of the migrants are impatient to reach the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The strain on local resources could be seen at the diocesan-run Dignified Border shelter, where on a recent morning migrants rifled through the rubbish set out for collection, searching for warm clothes as the temperature dropped to single digits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another group of ten who had ridden north on the train known as La Bestia (The Beast) were allowed inside to wash up and eat a quick breakfast, then sent on their way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/5ade0588cac4f0ccacf7328ab93d1773e77697d0\/0_246_3188_1914\/master\/3188.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=15ccd63fbc44abbd40c227a9657bf853\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMigrants flee violence only to find more in Tijuana \u2013 Mexico’s murder capital<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe shelter, adorned with images of Santo Toribio Romo, the patron saint of migrants, managed to squeeze in a pair of Hondurans pulled out of the river by Mexican immigration officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to spend another night on the river because last night I was completed keeled over, shivering with the cold,\u201d said Juan Ram\u00f3n Recinas, a 35-year-old welder from western Honduras, who was dressed handsomely in a red shirt, black pants and tan cowboy boots and matching belt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Migrants,](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/8d8b12011c658f4a0fda46ed59906e1380e3dc90\/0_76_3000_1800\/master\/3000.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=f31b638a385e225efaa348917c673b0b\")
<\/a> Migrants, most of whom are part of a recently arrived caravan, prepare to have breakfast at a migrant hostel in Piedras Negras. Photograph: Joe Raedle\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe shelter director and Dominican missionary Obed Cuellar says his 80-bed facility was set up to serve migrants making a final push to the US. But since last summer the shelter has seen more people hoping to claim political asylum \u2013 with some arriving from as far away as Cameroon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a population of 165,000, full of factories and set 1,250km north of Mexico City, Piedras Negras isn\u2019t an obvious destination for migrants. But Cuellar says migrants see it as safer than other border towns such as Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa to the east, or Tijuana and Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez to the west, which are convulsed with cartel violence and criminal gangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
None of the migrants being held in the former factory had the intention of staying put and many seemed unaware of the long waiting list for asylum applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like many others, Francisco Carranza, 28, said he was fleeing rampant violence in Honduras, and he was impatient to push on. \u201cWe didn\u2019t think we\u2019d be locked up in here,\u201d he said, though he conceded, \u201cWe\u2019ve been treated well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mexico\u2019s national immigration institute received more than 14,000 requests for humanitarian visas at the southern border \u2013 and has said any caravans moving north without registering would be stopped.Advertisement<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some Piedras Negras residents wondered aloud why Mexican authorities were only registering the migrants after they had already crossed the length of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Honduran](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/bb76810b040aad4f6965a18c3959be45be1a194d\/0_102_2476_1485\/master\/2476.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=604af5bcc37ad122102f23791874beaa\")
<\/a> Honduran Delia Romero, 24, sits with her children in their sleeping area at a sheltered in Piedras Negras, Mexico. Photograph: Jerry Lara\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cThey travelled more than 2,000km and the government didn\u2019t do anything until now,\u201d said \u00d3scar L\u00f3pez Elizondo, the former mayor of Piedras Negras, who described growing unease that local resources were going to foreigners. \u201cIt makes locals upset to see money being spent on people from other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Locals officials apparently fear the border could be closed, with disastrous consequences for the local economy, and \u2013 with their eyes on their US neighbours \u2013 they have made a show of taking a firm position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a press conference outside the factory, the Coahuila state governor Miguel Riquelme said that security was his top priority, and that no more caravans would be allowed to cross the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His public security secretary Jos\u00e9 Luis Pliego Corona, meanwhile, pulled out his smart phone to read prepared comments in English for a Fox News camera crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe United States needs to know that we are containing the migrants in the state of Coahuila. We want to know what kind of people they are. We want the American people to feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rows of federal police in riot gear faced the former factory in the Mexican borderlands, as soldiers watched on from the gun turrets on a pair of Humvees. But the armed men weren\u2019t preparing for an operation in the country\u2019s bloody drug wars: they were guarding a group of 1,700 Central American migrants who were hoping to reach the US…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3096,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions\/3096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Migrants \u2013 from Central America and beyond \u2013 are increasingly seeking safety in numbers as they make the dangerous passage through Mexico<\/a>. But the caravans are receiving somewhat rough receptions at border towns like Piedras Negras where locals react with suspicion and officials struggle to house and feed so many newcomers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem has been exacerbated by the Trump administration\u2019s clampdown on the asylum system: at many ports of entry, US authorities have imposed a limit on the number of people who can apply for asylum each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read moreAdvertisement<\/a>SPONSORED BY HALLMARK<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The policy, known as \u201cmetering\u201d, means that impoverished travellers are being forced to wait for weeks or even months<\/a> \u2013 often in border towns plagued with violence and criminal activity. In small towns like Piedras Negras, local authorities and migrant shelters run by churches and NGOs are often unready to deal with the sudden surge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMetering puts a lot of stress on the local civil society and municipal governments,\u201d said Stephanie Leutert, the director of the Mexico<\/a> Security Initiative at the Strauss center at the University of Texas. \u201cThe backlog is also creating another floating population that could be preyed upon by criminal groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Donald Trump fulminated about a \u201ccrisis\u201d at the border in his State of the Union speech last week, US officials were beefing up security at the international bridge linking Piedras Negras with its Texan twin city Eagle Pass. New gates topped with concertina wire were installed on the bridge while border guards patrolled the bridges and the banks of the Rio Grande.<\/p>\n\n\n\n US officials in Eagle Pass are now accepting only 15 asylum requests a day \u2013 and even fewer cases if they have to process any migrants caught swimming across the river, according to Elizabeth C\u00e1rdenas, a migrant advocate in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means a long wait looms for the newcomers. \u201cThey\u2019re probably going to have to spend five, six or seven months here,\u201d said Israel Rodr\u00edguez, a Baptist pastor, whose congregation provides meals for migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Authorities in the city have offered a grudging welcome to the migrants, who have been held in the abandoned factory in an industrial quarter. Officials say they are only being held while they apply for a humanitarian visa which would allow them to work and access benefits \u2013 though most of the migrants are impatient to reach the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The strain on local resources could be seen at the diocesan-run Dignified Border shelter, where on a recent morning migrants rifled through the rubbish set out for collection, searching for warm clothes as the temperature dropped to single digits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another group of ten who had ridden north on the train known as La Bestia (The Beast) were allowed inside to wash up and eat a quick breakfast, then sent on their way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shelter, adorned with images of Santo Toribio Romo, the patron saint of migrants, managed to squeeze in a pair of Hondurans pulled out of the river by Mexican immigration officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to spend another night on the river because last night I was completed keeled over, shivering with the cold,\u201d said Juan Ram\u00f3n Recinas, a 35-year-old welder from western Honduras, who was dressed handsomely in a red shirt, black pants and tan cowboy boots and matching belt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shelter director and Dominican missionary Obed Cuellar says his 80-bed facility was set up to serve migrants making a final push to the US. But since last summer the shelter has seen more people hoping to claim political asylum \u2013 with some arriving from as far away as Cameroon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a population of 165,000, full of factories and set 1,250km north of Mexico City, Piedras Negras isn\u2019t an obvious destination for migrants. But Cuellar says migrants see it as safer than other border towns such as Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa to the east, or Tijuana and Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez to the west, which are convulsed with cartel violence and criminal gangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of the migrants being held in the former factory had the intention of staying put and many seemed unaware of the long waiting list for asylum applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like many others, Francisco Carranza, 28, said he was fleeing rampant violence in Honduras, and he was impatient to push on. \u201cWe didn\u2019t think we\u2019d be locked up in here,\u201d he said, though he conceded, \u201cWe\u2019ve been treated well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mexico\u2019s national immigration institute received more than 14,000 requests for humanitarian visas at the southern border \u2013 and has said any caravans moving north without registering would be stopped.Advertisement<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some Piedras Negras residents wondered aloud why Mexican authorities were only registering the migrants after they had already crossed the length of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey travelled more than 2,000km and the government didn\u2019t do anything until now,\u201d said \u00d3scar L\u00f3pez Elizondo, the former mayor of Piedras Negras, who described growing unease that local resources were going to foreigners. \u201cIt makes locals upset to see money being spent on people from other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Locals officials apparently fear the border could be closed, with disastrous consequences for the local economy, and \u2013 with their eyes on their US neighbours \u2013 they have made a show of taking a firm position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a press conference outside the factory, the Coahuila state governor Miguel Riquelme said that security was his top priority, and that no more caravans would be allowed to cross the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His public security secretary Jos\u00e9 Luis Pliego Corona, meanwhile, pulled out his smart phone to read prepared comments in English for a Fox News camera crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe United States needs to know that we are containing the migrants in the state of Coahuila. We want to know what kind of people they are. We want the American people to feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rows of federal police in riot gear faced the former factory in the Mexican borderlands, as soldiers watched on from the gun turrets on a pair of Humvees. But the armed men weren\u2019t preparing for an operation in the country\u2019s bloody drug wars: they were guarding a group of 1,700 Central American migrants who were hoping to reach the US…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3096,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions\/3096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFleeing home alone: the migrant children blocked at Mexican border<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Make Little Ones Feel So Very Loved On Valentine’s Day.Show Them They’re Special With A Hallmark Card That Hides A Surprise Inside. SHOP NOW<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMigrants flee violence only to find more in Tijuana \u2013 Mexico’s murder capital<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>