- An immigrant caravan is driving towards the US border.
- People are tired and hungry.
- They have sought help from US President Joe Biden.
Elsa Pineda was hungry and tired after traveling through Mexico in an immigrant caravan for three weeks. She begged US President Joe Biden to give her daughter a chance to escape the Honduran gang danger.
“He has to help those of us who really need help,” she said after spending a night on the concrete floor near the roadside with hundreds of other immigrants.
Pineda, 35, said that although it is dangerous to sleep outdoors at night along a busy highway through violent Mexico, Honduras is “a thousand times more dangerous” by comparison.
“Although we face hunger, rain and cold, thank God we are still here,” she said.
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But Pineda was worried about her 15-year-old son, and she worried that he was taken away by immigration the night before.
In addition to giving her eight-year-old daughter a chance to live a better life, she also hopes to make money in the United States and send it home to her eldest daughter who has just given birth.
A more humane approach
When Biden holds a tripartite summit with Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Washington on Thursday, the immigration crisis will be on the agenda. Important topics.
Biden entered the White House with a promise of a more humane approach to immigration, leading to an increase in the flow of undocumented foreigners fleeing poverty and violence.
But most people did not get the warm welcome they had hoped, but were turned away from the US border if they were not detained by the Mexican authorities along the way.
The organizers of the caravan initially planned to go to the capital to claim refugee status to avoid deportation.
But they announced last week that their plans have changed. They will travel to the US border and condemn the alleged abuse by Mexican security forces.
Every night, most Central American immigrants will stop somewhere along the highway and spread their blankets, plastic sheets or cardboards where they can find sleep.
At dawn, they packed up a few of their things and carried them on their backs or in the stroller.
Some people wear flip-flops or thin sandals. After leaving the southern border city of Tapachula on October 23, the others walked about 500 kilometers before staggering with their sticks, bruising their feet and wearing bandages.
A woman was lying on the side of the road, too tired or sick to go any further.
intense situation
With the organizers urging her to move on, Erlinda Lopez tried to keep up with the back of the caravan and asked the presidents of the United States and Mexico for help.
she says:
Lopez, 31, fled Nicaragua with her 10-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son because she said “repression” was rampant.
“All we want is to reach our destination (the United States) and raise our children,” she said.
After the clashes in October and the killing of two Cubans, tensions between the Mexican authorities and immigrants continued to increase.
The National Guard stated that its agents opened fire after the driver of the vehicle they were driving ignored the parking order and tried to hit the patrol car.
Irineo Mujica, one of the leaders of the caravan, accused the Mexican government of treating immigrants as “animals.”
He said:
They don’t treat us as human beings.
At the checkpoints along the way, the immigration staff shouted to provide undocumented foreigners with a one-year residence permit on humanitarian grounds.
Although some people have given up on marching to accept this proposal, others think it is a tactic to deceive and detain them.
They still have hundreds of kilometers to reach the US-Mexico border on foot, and security forces are watching closely to ensure that motorists passing by will not hitchhiker.
“Sometimes I feel like I can’t continue, but I know I have to do it because there is no other way,” Lopez said.
“I can’t go back to my country,” she said with tears.
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