Migrants fearful after hundreds arrested in Mexico raid

[Right_in_Virginia]

Migrants fearful after hundreds arrested in Mexico raid
Associated Press, Apr 23, 2019, MARK STEVENSON and SONIA PÉREZ D.

TONALA, Mexico (AP) — Central American migrants traveling through southern Mexico toward the U.S. on Tuesday fearfully recalled their frantic escape from police the previous day, scuttling under barbed wire fences into pastures and then spending the night in the woods after hundreds were detained in a raid.

In the Chiapas state town of Tonala, migrants flocked to one of the few places they felt they could be safe — the local Roman Catholic church — only to start with fear at the sound of a passing ambulance’s siren.

“There are people still lost up in the woods. The woods are very dangerous,” said Arturo Hernández, a sinewy 59-year-old farmer from Comayagua, Honduras, who fled through the woods with his grandson. “They waited until we were resting and fell upon us, grabbing children and women.”

Mexican immigration authorities said 371 people were detained Monday in what was the largest single raid so far on a migrant caravan since the groups started moving through the country last year.

The once large caravan of about 3,000 people was essentially broken up by the raid, as migrants fled into the hills, took refuge at shelters and churches or hopped passing freight trains. A brave few groups straggled along the highways, but with dozens of police and immigration checkpoints, they were bound to be caught.

Journalists from The Associated Press saw police target isolated groups at the tail end of the caravan near Pijijiapan Monday, wrestling migrants into police vehicles for transport and presumably deportation as children wailed.

Now terrified of walking exposed on the highways, some turned in desperation to a tactic that used to be a popular way north, clambering aboard a passing freight train bound for the neighboring state of Tabasco. It’s been years since migrants hopped trains in large numbers.

Javier Núñez, a 25-year-old Honduran, said he and his family walked through the hills, along a river and by some train tracks after Monday’s raid before venturing into the town of Pijijiapan to find something to eat. But agents appeared again Monday night and detained his wife and son, who he said were taken to an immigration facility in Tapachula for deportation processing.

“They were hunting us,” Núñez said. As he sees it, the only thing to do is go on alone, see how far he can make it. “Now we are afraid of everyone who looks at us or approaches.”


More:  https://apnews.com/4fee9cc2440b4f6a852d190ae30ba3fb

[Right_in_Virginia]

FTA

Migrants who opt to join caravans do so figuring there is safety in numbers and also because it is a relatively inexpensive alternative to paying thousands of dollars to a “coyote,” or smuggler.

But they are finding it a much tougher go through Mexico than before. In addition to Monday’s dramatic raid, migrants have experienced a cooler reaction from townspeople, who last year donated food and clothing but have grown tired of the groups. Migrants say once-friendly Mexicans now refuse to give even water, leaving them no choice but to drink from puddles at times.

“People don’t want them to enter the towns,” said Gerardo Lara Espinosa, a bus dispatcher in Tonala, who said the caravans are seen as overwhelming small towns and hurting businesses.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Just go home.  Take a hint.