Reports of a new caravan forming at the Mexico-Guatemala border Thursday included a figure of anywhere
from 1500-4000 migrants planning their trip north.
According to the New York Post, the town of Tecun Uman Guatemala is the formation point,
and that is around 1000 miles from the United States border in McAllen, Texas.
The group is being held up, however, because of their need to cross a bridge into Mexico
that the country has closed, at the encouragement of President Donald Trump.
"We are in a horrible crisis in our country," said Gabriela Patricia Aguilar Lainez, 37,
one of those gathering in the town plaza with her 3-year-old daughter, according to USA
Today.
"We are in a political crisis, an economic crisis, and a crime crisis."
According to the same news outlet, there was no clear evidence that the new group of migrants
from Honduras was funded by a company or organization, just that they shared a common goal.
The migrants have stated to reporters they banded together to flee violence that is rampant
in their home countries.
The Mexican government has begun to do what it can to keep the migrants from moving through
their borders, deploying dozens of additional immigration officials and federal police to
the banks of the river that connects the two countries.
Thursday saw federal police, armed with rifles and immigration officers checking border-crossing
documents as they climbed from rafts onto the Mexican river bank.
Anyone without valid documents is being sent back across the river into Guatemala.
President Donald Trump said in a message to the marchers in a tweet Thursday.
"To those in the Caravan, turnaround, we are not letting people into the United States
illegally," the commander-in-chief tweeted.
"Go back to your Country and if you want, apply for citizenship like millions of others
are doing!"
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