Hundreds of Central American migrants waded across the Suchiate River into southern Mexico on Monday in a new test of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Central America strategy to keep them away from the U.S. border.
The migrants moved off the border bridge and toward the river after Mexican officials told them they would not be granted passage through the country.
Amid shouts and even some fireworks they began wading across the shallow river.
On the Mexican side, migrants ran from side to side along the river bank, kicking up dust and looking for an opening in the ranks of National Guard troops sent to meet them.
Guardsmen scrambled too, trying to head off groups and detaining people where they could. There was pushing and shoving. Some guardsmen carried plastic riot shields hit with rocks tossed by migrants and they occasionally zipped a rock back into the crowd. Others jogged to get into position with long staffs. Still others carried assault rifles.
Many of migrants moved back to the river’s edge and a smaller number crossed back to Guatemala.
“You have two options: you go back to Guatemalan territory or you come with us,” Mexican immigration agents said to migrants who had crossed the river. They assured those who went with them that they would “regularize” their status, but few of the migrants believed them.
“Mexico’s president said he would give us work and an opportunity and look,”said Esther Madrid, a Honduran vendor who left her six children in Honduras. Sitting on a rock among dozens of people who didn’t know what to do next, she offered only one word when asked if she would consider returning to San Pedro Sula: “Never.”
By early afternoon, the stalemate resumed, the difference being that the migrants were now on the Mexican side of the river.
Riot police with shields also appeared on the Guatemala side of river, raising questions about what options really remained for the migrants.
Occasionally a few migrants would try to run through a break in the ranks of Mexican guardsmen, but most rested, waiting to see what would happen next.
Daisy Pérez, 42, travelling with two children used the break in the action to call a relative: “We’re in Mexico, send us money.”
A 14-year-old girl was carried from the riverbank unconscious. It was unclear what had happened but a guardsman said she had been convulsing.
The migrants want free passage across Mexico to the U.S. border and Mexico’s government on Monday rejected that.
While the government says the migrants are free to enter — and could compete for jobs if they want to stay and work — in practice, it has restricted such migrants to the southernmost states while their cases are processed by a sluggish bureaucracy. Those who do not request asylum or some protective status would likely be detained and deported.
A letter relayed to the migrants on Monday by an official of Mexico’s immigration agency restated the Mexican government’s position that the migrants would be allowed to enter in orderly fashion, while rejecting free passage.
Edwin Chavez, a 19-year-old from Tegucigalpa, said, “By river, that’s the way it will be.”
“There’s no fear,” Chavez said. “We’re already used to repression. In your country they repress you, they hit you. It’s always like that.”