Migrant caravan swells to 5,000, resumes advance toward US

Associated Press

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico

A growing throng of Central American migrants resumed their advance toward the U.S. border in southern Mexico on Sunday, overwhelming Mexican government attempts to stop them at the border.

Their numbers swelled to about 5,000 overnight and at first light they set out walking toward the Mexican town of Tapachula, 10 abreast in a line stretching approximately a mile.

Several hundred more already had applied for refugee status in Mexico and an estimated 1,500 were still on the Guatemalan side of the Suchiate River, hoping to enter legally.

It was not immediately clear where the additional travelers had materialized from since about 2,000 had been gathered on the Mexican side Saturday night. But people have been joining and leaving the caravan daily, some moving at their own pace and strung out in a series of columns as they moved across Guatemala.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump is again hammering the Democratic Party over a mass caravan of Honduran migrants that has resumed its northward march through Mexico.

Trump has seized on the caravan and border security in general as a campaign issued ahead of midterm elections in early November, and on Sunday afternoon he let loose anew.

The president tweeted that “The Caravans are a disgrace to the Democrat Party. Change the immigration laws NOW!”

In a separate tweet, he said that “Full efforts are being made to stop the onslaught of illegal aliens from crossing our Souther [sic] Border.”

Trump added that the United States will turn migrants away if they do not apply for asylum first in Mexico.