The first 2000
arrivals of the Migrant Caravan have been stopped from crossing the US border
and are being held by the Mexican government in a shelter in Tijuana that holds
3000. The Migrants in these caravans will not be processed into the US. Smaller
groups of migrants who crossed the border are being caught and deported back to
their own countries.
Violence
breaks out at Tijuana border as migrant caravan arrives to already crowded city,
by Rebecca Plevin, 11/15/18, Palm Springs Desert Sun.
The migrants are
reaching their final destination in Mexico amid inflamed tensions on both sides
of the California-Mexico border.
Hundreds
of people who arrived in Tijuana with the first wave of the migrant caravan
planned to spend Wednesday night in a makeshift camp by the Pacific Ocean,
steps from the tall border fence that separates Mexico and the United States.
But those plans shifted in the evening, after local and state officials opened
a temporary shelter – and about 300 local residents gathered by the encampment
to demand the migrants leave the upscale Playas de Tijuana neighborhood and go
to the facility.
During
a confrontation that
lasted more than three hours, area residents sang the Mexican national anthem and
waved Mexican flags. They chanted “Mexico! Mexico!” each time a bus
transporting migrants left the beach for the temporary shelter. Mostly women
and children went to the shelters, while young men from the caravan said they
were determined to stay together at the beach and await the estimated 2,000
more caravan members on their way to Tijuana.
Pushing, shoving,
kicking and a couple of blows broke out between masses of residents and
migrants, illuminated by the crescent moon and mobile light
towers, set up by authorities on the beach on the U.S. side of the border. More
than three dozen municipal and federal police watched, separating people and
trying to prevent the situation from devolving into fistfights and chaos.
After midnight,
residents assaulted journalists, injuring at least three, according to
reporters on the scene.
By Thursday, the
migrants had left the beach and joined hundreds of caravan members at a
temporary shelter at the Benito Juarez sports complex. The complex has room for
3,000 people to sleep on thin mattresses on the floor of an indoor basketball
court, in large, communal tents and in individual camping tents, according to a
local official.
“The message to
the migrant population is very clear,” said Francisco Rueda Gómez,
secretary-general of the state of Baja California. “We are providing them with
humanitarian support, health care and
food, however the need to take into consideration the rules of the shelters so
they can coexist in harmony with the local population.”
Rueda Gómez said
it will cost about $4 million to care for the migrants for two months,
including providing food and medical care. He said the state government can
only afford to fund this work for 10 days at the most, so he has asked the
federal government for support.
The violent night
Wednesday marks the latest in rising tensions, as waves of migrants arrive in
the border town south of San Diego, culminating a month-long journey across
Mexico.
The conflict was
foreshadowed earlier in the day at the beach. By the afternoon, two large
groups of migrants – a total of about 750 people – had arrived in Tijuana. The
city’s migrant shelters had limited space when the caravan arrived. A large
portion of the migrants said they didn’t want to be separated, opting instead
to sleep at the beach.
On Wednesday
evening, city and state officials announced they were opening a temporary
shelter at the Benito Juarez sports complex, where 360 migrants could sleep on
thin mattresses in an indoor basketball court. They started offering buses from
the beach to the shelter around 6 p.m.
Meanwhile, Playas
de Tijuana residents marched through the neighborhood to call for security and
demand the migrants go to the shelters.
By 8:30 p.m.,
hundreds of residents and migrants had congregated by the beach, with local
residents demanding the immigrants leave the public space at the beach.
“This is not an
appropriate place for them,” one local resident said. “There are appropriate
places for them.”
One Honduran migrant,
Jairo Sorto, told residents that throughout their long journey through Mexico,
people had welcome and supported them – until now.
“We’ve walked
across Mexico and not one state said, ‘we don’t want immigrants in this
country,’” Sorto said. He asked why area residents were treating the migrants
differently.
The last bus left
for the temporary shelter around 11 p.m., leaving about 200 locals and about
100 migrants gathered by the beach. Some migrants tried to sleep through
the commotion, sprawled on patches of grass, with blankets pulled over their
heads.
As the conflict
intensified, Irineo Mujica, an immigrant activist who helps organize migrant
caravans, said the migrants still at the beach – and the ones en route to
Tijuana – wouldn’t go to the shelters. He referred to them as “jails” with
strict curfews. He said he was concerned that non-governmental organizations
wouldn’t be allowed into the shelters, making it harder for the migrants to
remain organized as one collective.
“For this reason
– because this is oppression – we prefer to be in the streets, in the cold,
rather than in a jail,” Mujica said.
There are at
least three separate migrant caravans making their way through Mexico. Nearly
900 people from the first caravan arrived in Tijuana this week and on Wednesday
night, local and state officials estimated 2,000 more were on their way. Several hundred of those 2,000 arrived
Thursday morning, according to local reports. A second caravan started arriving
in Mexico City Tuesday and as of Wednesday, a third caravan was traveling
through Veracruz, on the eastern side of Mexico.
Rueda Gómez, with
the Baja California government, said Tijuana’s migrant shelters currently have
space for 700 migrants, in addition to the 3,000 spots at the sports complex.
Gustavo
Magallanes, who oversees migrant affairs for the state of Baja California, said
the arrival of the caravans in Tijuana is not a humanitarian crisis. The
challenge, he said, is that so many people are arriving in such a short period
of time. On top of that, he said, there are limited resources available for the
migrants, as state and local governments are nearing the end of their fiscal
years.
More: A
previous migrant caravan faced the same federal scrutiny. Here is how that
turned outof violence broke out throughout
the night
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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