Catholic Agencies Ready for Influx Of Migrants at Mexican Border thetablet.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thetablet.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Extractive industry is another reason migrants leave home
Hondurans kept their national flag at the front of the migrant caravan in Vado Hondo, Guatemala. | Photos by Sandra Cuffe
Francisco could have left his home in northeastern Honduras for any number of reasons. The coronavirus pandemic and related lockdown measures had put an end to his work as a bricklayer s assistant, which had earned him $8 a day. Two hurricanes then swept through the region late last year, destroying homes, crops, and infrastructure.
But the main reason Francisco fled Honduras was because of a mining project. An iron oxide mine under construction inside a national park just south of the city of Tocoa has sparked years of opposition, conflict, and violence in the area. Community residents have been protesting the mine to protect their river. Some are in jail. Others face threats. People have been killed.
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