Thousands of migrants from Honduras have entered Guatemala and plan to continue north towards the United States, potentially constituting an initial test of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s immigration policies, which has promised to ease the Trump administration’s restrictions on asylum.
After a few hundred people passed through the border police on Friday, thousands headed for Guatemala on Saturday. Officials said between 7,000 and 9,000 people entered the country, many of them ignoring coronavirus tests.
O Guatemalan government said that “regrets this violation of national sovereignty and calls on Central American governments to take measures to prevent its inhabitants, as well as the communities they pass through, from being at risk in the face of the pandemic”.
Migrants must face continuous obstacles along their route. Guatemalan authorities have set up checkpoints, blocked parts of the caravan not far from where it entered Guatemala and can begin returning some of the migrants by bus home, the Associated Press reported.
Mexican authorities have deployed additional troops and immigration officers along the country’s southern border in anticipation of the caravan.
“In our national territory, we have to guarantee orderly, safe and regular migration, with respect to human rights and humanitarian policies,” said Francisco Garduño Yáñez, head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, in a statement on Friday.
Group members told reporters that they were driven to escape crime, poverty and homelessness exacerbated by the pandemic and two hurricanes at the end of last year.
“We have nothing to feed our children and thousands of us were left sleeping on the streets,” Maria Jesus Paz, a mother of four, told Reuters news agency. She said her family had lost their home in the storms, forcing them to flee.
“That’s why we made that decision, even though we know that the journey can cost us our lives,” he added.
The consecutive hurricanes that hit Central America in November “destroyed livelihoods in a region that was already facing an economic crisis and where the income of thousands of families had already been seriously reduced due to the pandemic,” said the International Committee of the Red Cross said on saturday.
The Trump administration has made a series of agreements with Mexico and Central American countries to prevent migrants from reaching the United States. Mark Morgan, acting commissioner for Customs and Border Protection, said on Saturday that Guatemala continued to comply with that agreement.
“Guatemala continues to support the regional alliance committed to safe, orderly and legal migration and the protection of public health during the global pandemic,” Mr. Morgan said on Twitter. Guatemala’s immigration agency “is already returning caravan members to Honduras after they illegally entered Guatemala.”
During the presidential campaign, Biden said he would act quickly to undo the tougher asylum restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, which disqualified people who did not seek protection on their way to the United States and forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico.
On his first day in office, Biden plans to ask Congress for a comprehensive review of immigration laws. That proposal, which will be unveiled on Wednesday, includes a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the United States, aid for damaged Central American economies and plans to help people fleeing violence.
Last month, Biden, in an effort to avoid a rush to the border, warned that changes in immigration policy could not be implemented immediately after he took office and that his government would “probably take the next six months” to develop a “more humane policy” for the processing of migrants.