EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The first migrant caravan heading to the U.S. in 2025 continued its northward march Friday in the southern state of Chiapas.
Mexican television footage showed hundreds of adults, some with blisters on their feet and children by their side, waking up in a park along Mexico’s Pacific Highway.
It is at least the 10th large group setting out to the U.S. border since October, with more expected to hit the road before President-elect Trump takes office later this month. Migrant advocates fear the potential impact of his campaign promises to effect mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally and to toughen scrutiny on asylum claims.
“There must be an agreement between the government of Mexico and the government of the United States to establish humanitarian policies in favor of all these people,” Luis Garcia Villagran, director of the Center for Human Dignity and a key organizer of the caravan, told reporters Thursday in Tapachula. The Center for Human Dignity is a non-profit organization that advocates for the rights of migrants and refugees. “We are not criminals. All we are asking for is an opportunity for life.”
Reports on Friday indicated the imminent arrival of another large contingent, possibly heading to Juarez in the next few days, just across the border from El Paso. The situation is becoming increasingly urgent.
The Rev. Francisco Gonzalez, who runs 11 shelters in northern Mexican cities, told Border Report more than 2,000 migrants in Durango plan to make their way to the U.S. border soon.
“People at our shelters in Laguna and Gomez Palacio are expressing their intent to proceed to Piedras Negras, Nuevo Laredo and Ciudad Juarez,” Gonzalez said on Friday. “Our shelter network in Juarez is making preparations (to receive) those who will try to cross before Trump” takes office.
Border Report, in the past three days, has contacted several migrant shelter operators in anticipation of a possible pre-Trump asylum rush to the border.
All say they have seen an increase in new arrivals but not enough to overwhelm their bed capacity or food and cleaning supplies. Some fear that could change if Trump goes through with mass deportations, forcing cities like Juarez to cope with the steady stream of migrants headed north and large numbers of people being removed from the U.S. to Mexico.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo on Friday said she “is not in favor” of mass deportations of U.S. residents to her country but acknowledged that is not up to Mexico.
“We are going to ask the United States that, if possible, they can take the migrants who are not from Mexico to their countries of origin,” Sheinbaum said in a news conference broadcast on YouTube. “If not, we can collaborate through different mechanisms. There will be time to talk about this with the U.S. government if these deportations occur. […] But we will receive them (the migrants), and we will receive them well.”
(ProVideo in Juarez, Mexico, contributed to this report.)
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