www.zerohedge.com A caravan of Central American migrants was stopped in its tracks last week by the Mexican National Guard, which arrested migrants as they crossed the river at the border town of Tecun Uman and hauled them off to a detention center in the nearby city of Tapachula.
“I can see that these caravans are no longer going to pass,” said 56-year-old Mexican street merchant Miguel Ăngel VĂĄzquez, who has seen throngs of migrants stream past his front door while making the northbound journey to the United States southern border.
On Thursday, migrants and Mexican national guard troops faced off on a rural highway in the far-southern Mexican city of Frontera Hidalgo – across from the river border between Mexico and Guatemala that hundreds of mostly-Honduran migrants crossed before dawn.
After walking for hours before stopping at the crossroads where VĂĄzquez’s food stand lies, hundreds of national guard troops advanced their lines to within 100 yards of the migrants. Following a brief negotiation, members of the caravan knelt to the ground, chanting “we want to pass.”
The national guardsmen instead advanced on the group, banging their plastic shields with batons as they shoved and pepper sprayed the migrants in a massive round-up. In total, around 800 migrants were detained.
This morning when Mexican officials closed the Tecun Uman entry so that caravanerxs could not enter Mexico. pic.twitter.com/jWuJYrjC05
— Tapachula Migrant Solidarity (@SolXxtap) January 18, 2020