Largest ever migrant caravan begins walk across entire length of Mexico to U.S. border
Karen Townsend Jun 05, 2022 3:31 PM ET
The largest-ever migrant caravan is beginning its trek to the US-Mexico border. The estimated number of migrants in the caravan ranges from about 11,000 to 15,000. Most of them are women and children. The news of the caravan comes at a particularly awkward time for the Biden administration. Biden’s Summit of the Americas is supposed to begin Monday in Los Angeles.
As often happens with the Biden administration, details about the Summit are murky. As of the middle of last week, the leaders who will attend has not been confirmed. The caravan plans to leave Tapachula, a city on the Mexico-Guatemala border, on Monday, the same day the Summit of the Americas is set to begin. Other caravans have left from Tapachula in the past but this one is said to be the largest one ever. The migrants in the caravan aren’t just from Central America, they are from countries around the world, from as far away as Africa and India.
“This is the largest mass human migration I have seen in at least the past 10 years,” said Luís Villagrán, an organizer of the caravan and director of the non-profit Center for Human Dignification.
The largest number of migrants in the caravan come from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua – three countries whose authoritarian rulers Joe Biden has conspicuously refused to invite to the summit. But there are also Haitians, Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans and even citizens of India, Bangladesh, and several African countries.
Earlier this month, the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM), wrote to Villagrán, expressing sympathy for the caravan’s members and pledging to help the most vulnerable among them. The letter also acknowledges that the caravan is a result of the stunning tsunami of migration from nearly every country in the Americas to the United States in the past few years, attributing this migration to elevated rates of violence and economic instability in the continent.
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https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2022/06/05/largest-ever-migrant-caravan-begins-walk-across-entire-length-of-mexico-to-u-s-border-n474111