Guatemala Takes a Hard Line Against Migrants—With US Support thenation.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thenation.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Laura Gottesdiener, Frank Jack Daniel and Ted Hesson CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico (Reuters) - In the days before U.S. President Joe Biden s inauguration, Mexican soldiers patrolling the banks of the wide Suchiate River found few migrants amid the flow of trade across the water from Guatemala. The likely explanation lay hundreds of miles to the south, where baton-wielding Guatemalan security forces beat back one the largest U.S.-bound migrant caravans ever assembled, according to a Reuters photographer and other witnesses. We re scared, Honduran migrant Rosa Alvarez told a reporter by telephone as she fled with many others toward the nearby hills, two young children in tow. The operation was part of a U.S.-led effort, pursued by past American administrations and accelerated under former President Donald Trump, to pressure first the Mexican and then the Central American governments to halt migration well short of the U.S. border. Under the Biden administration, the same general strategy
In the days before U.S. President Joe Biden's inauguration, Mexican soldiers patrolling the banks of the wide Suchiate River found few migrants amid the flow of trade across the water from Guatemala.
On 18 January, Guatemala security forces cleared a road occupied by migrants from a large caravan, comprised mainly of Hondurans entering the country and camped overnight. Security forces were seen wielding shields and descending the road toward them by the Vado Hondo village. Migrants were prompted to assemble by increased hardships in Honduras, already rampant with poverty and gang violence. It now faces an economic downturn wrought by COVID-19, compounding damage from two November hurricanes. The caravan also endeavoured with hopes of a stronger embrace from newly elected United States President Joe Biden than his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Notwithstanding, early Tuesday, buses, and police transported migrants to the Guatemala-Honduras border crossing of El Florido. They were then passed from Guatemalan to Honduran border agents and boarded buses returning them to their hometowns. While small groups proceeded toward Mexico’s border, over 2,300 migrants were returned to Honduras