The Mexican government has reinforced security at its southern border with Guatemala before a 2,000-person caravan of Hondurans is expected to try to enter the country and head for the United States, according to a local report. Hundreds of Mexican Federal Police, including General Commissioner Manelich Castilla, and officers from the National Institute of Migration, the country’s immigration agency, arrived in Tapachula, Chiapas, on Tuesday. Chiapas is one of two Mexican states that border Guatemala. Federal officials believe the Honduran group will try to enter Mexico from the state’s 200-mile international border, according to La Prensa. The State Department confirmed to the Washington Examiner Tuesday afternoon that the “large group of migrants is making its way north to Mexico and onwards” to the U.S. border. “We are concerned that these migrants have been the victims of false promises by those seeking to exploit them,” a State official wrote in an email. “We continue to partner with Central America countries to address the underlying economic, security, and governance conditions that drive illegal immigration to the United States.” The group left Honduras last week and arrived in Guatemala Monday. It started out as 160 people and has grown to what local police estimate is now 2,000 people, according to an Associated Press report. Mexico’s Interior Ministry warned Saturday it will only allow those granted visas to cross into the country. Those in the caravan would have had to have applied for visas at the Mexican consulates in Honduras. The caravan is the second major group of Central American citizens to migrate to the U.S. this year following one this spring. That group passed through Mexico and later crossed into the U.S. by requesting asylum at ports of entry and illegally crossing between ports. DHS previously told the Washington Examiner that smugglers often bring small groups of less than a dozen people from Central America then hold them in border towns just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. Then, they will lead 100 to 200 people over at once. DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman said the latest incident of a caravan originating in Central America is due to the “de facto open borders” of America due to “loopholes” in immigration laws that allow families and kids from noncontiguous countries to be released after being taken into federal custody. President Trump on Tuesday threatened to suspend all financial aid to Honduras if the president did not stop the group from leaving, though they had already crossed into Guatemala by then. He made the same threat in April. Honduras leads the world as the country with the highest murder rate. The country is home to 8.25 million people and has reported 90.4 murders for every 100,000 residents, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.<doc-sep>Migrant caravans of this type are nothing new, they quite often take place. However, this one, coming as it does so close to the US mid-term elections in November, has taken on a highly political dimension, to that point that President Trump has threatened to use the military and close the US southern border.<doc-sep>David Agren Special to USA Today MEXICO CITY — The government of Mexico dispatched two 727 Boeing planes filled with federal police officers to its southern border with Guatemala on Wednesday to intercept a caravan of Central American migrants who are trying to reach the U.S. border. The Interior and Foreign Relations ministries said in a joint statement that any migrant in the caravan without proper immigration papers would be arrested and “returned to their country of origin.” Those with proper documents or wishing to apply for asylum would be allowed to enter Mexico. The caravan of migrants set out last week from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, which has long been one of the hemisphere's most violent cities with a murder rate ranking among the highest in the world. The group of migrants swelled to an estimated 4,000 people even as President Donald Trump has condemned them and threatened to cut aid to Honduras if government officials do not cooperate in preventing their trip to the U.S. "The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!" Trump tweeted on Tuesday. He followed up Tuesday night with a similar threat, but added more Central American countries to his list. "We have today informed the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that if they allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States, with the intention of entering our country illegally, all payments made to them will STOP (END)!" he wrote. Trump continued ranting about the caravan of migrants on Wednesday, lashing out at Democrats and accusing them of not wanting to boost border security. "Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats won’t approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country. Great Midterm issue for Republicans!" he wrote. More:Trump: Aid will end to Central American countries allowing migrant caravan to head to US Migrants have long streamed out of Central America in large numbers, increasingly as family units, in attempts to flee poverty and violence. The "Northern Triangle" of Central America — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador —rank among the most violent in the world, though homicide rates have fallen in recent years. Drug cartels move illegal merchandise through the region and street gangs control neighborhoods and routinely charge residents "rent" (a euphemism for extortion payments). Caravans of migrants regularly convene as participants seek safety in numbers. Undocumented migrants transiting Mexico often fall victim to crimes such as kidnapping, extortion and rape — often committed by criminal gangs, drug cartels, coyotes and crooked public officials. A caravan earlier this year also captured Trump’s attention. In a series of tweets, he accused Mexico of inaction to irregular migrants moving through its territory, even though Mexico operates checkpoints across its southern states. Over the past five years its immigration agency has detained and deported more Central Americans than the United States. More:Did Central American migrants from the previous caravan enter the U.S.? Mexican immigration officials deported 77,371 people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in 2017, according to the Interior Ministry. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Border Patrol agents detained nearly 17,000 family members in September, an 80 percent increase from July when the administration ended its controversial practice of separating families at the border. The United States has sent $1.1 billion in aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador over the past two years, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank. The aid has been controversial: Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales has been accused of corruption and has moved to terminate the work of a UN-sponsored anti-impunity commission, which has helped to convict members of the country political class on graft charges. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández controversially won re-election last year in a race marred by irregularities and a crackdown on people protesting the outcome. Guatemala’s government issued a statement Monday saying the caravan would be stopped — even though Central American countries have agreements allowing its citizens to cross borders freely. A caravan lawmaker, Bartolo Fuentes, was arrested in Guatemala and would be deported back to Honduras, Reuters reported. The caravan, however, continues moving northward. Honduras has deployed police to its border with Guatemala and urged its citizens not to participate in the caravan. Vice President Mike Pence has warned Central Americans repeatedly to stay put. Last week, he told the Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America: "We need all the nations in the Northern Triangle region to reinforce this message: Do not put your families at risk by taking the dangerous journey north to attempt to enter the U.S. illegally. The truth is, if they cannot come to the US legally, they should not come at all." Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, said the caravan is another example of how undocumented immigrants and “their enablers continue to flout the laws of the United States” and urged his fellow lawmakers to approve a bill he introduced to penalize the home country of every undocumented immigrant caught at the border. “We have continued to provide foreign aid to our neighbors to the south even though they permit, and even encourage, thousands of their citizens to enter the U.S. illegally,” he said in a statement issued Wednesday. Under Biggs’ bill, “Fund and Complete the Border Wall Act,” the U.S. government would reduce $2,000 in aid to countries for each migrant arrested and direct money collected into a border wall fund. Analysts say most migrants are not dissuaded by the risk of the road and ignore admonishments from the U.S. government, or anti-immigrant sentiments that appear to be more prevalent in the country, because the situation is that dire in their own countries. "Many Hondurans are or were leaving behind gang or domestic violence in marginalized neighborhoods, where government services are lacking and the day to day life may be controlled by the dominant gang," said Stephanie Leutert director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the Strauss Center at the University of Texas. More recently, though, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data show "larger numbers of migrants from the rural western regions" of Honduras, she added. "The factors pushing out these migrants are going to look different and generally be tied to agriculture — such as low global commodity prices, especially coffee — and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns," she said. "These rural migrants could head to the dangerous Honduran big cities or go north. And from the data, it looks like more and more are choosing to go north." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travels to Mexico City on Friday, where he will meet with officials from Mexico’s outgoing and incoming governments. In the campaign, president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who takes office Dec. 1, pledged not to "do the dirty work" of any foreign government, when referencing Central American migrants transiting Mexican territory.<doc-sep>
Mexico sent federal forces to its southern border Wednesday after President Trump called on several Latin American nations to stop a large caravan of Honduran immigrants heading toward the United States. Mexico’s federal police released images of two planes arriving in Tapachula, a Mexican city on the border with Guatemala that is a popular crossing point for migrants heading north. News reports showed hundreds of agents disembarking from the planes, some carrying riot gear. In a series of sternly worded statements, the government has made it clear in recent days that it will not allow any of the estimated 2,000 immigrants traveling with the caravan to cross into Mexican territory without proper documentation. Anybody entering the country “in an irregular manner” will be apprehended and, if appropriate, returned to their home country, one statement said. Immigrants fleeing violence or other threats who want refugee status to stay in Mexico must request it at the border and wait up to 45 days in immigration detention, the government said. The last time a similar caravan of immigrants captured international headlines, back in April, Mexican authorities gave immigrants short-term visas that allowed them to transit through Mexico and reach the United States border. That angered Trump, who sent National Guard troops to the border and said the caravan’s participants posed a threat to U.S. sovereignty. This time Mexican officials appear eager to please Trump, who has threatened to withhold funding from countries that don’t seek to curb illegal immigration. “They are clearly responding to Trump’s outbursts,” political analyst Carlos Bravo Regidor said of Mexican authorities. “I think that for a really long time, Mexico has outsourced its decisions about our southern border to the U.S.” Immigration crackdowns are also popular within Mexico, Bravo said. Some Mexicans resent Central American immigrants, who are sometimes willing to work for lower wages than Mexicans. The caravan, which includes people fleeing violence and political repression as well as migrants in search of jobs, departed Saturday from the violence-plagued Honduran city of San Pedro Sula — two days after Vice President Mike Pence prevailed on the leaders of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to urge their citizens not to enter the United States illegally. On Monday, the migrants pushed past authorities at the Guatemalan border, and the next day Trump threatened to withhold aid from Central American countries if the caravan is not halted. “Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats won’t approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country,” he tweeted Wednesday. But the caravan pushed on, mostly on foot. On Wednesday, it was still hundreds of miles from the Mexican border. U.S. officials announced that Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo will visit Mexico City on Friday to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. The caravan will be on the agenda, a senior State Department official told reporters. “I’m certain that there’ll be conversations with Mexico about how we can work together on this issue,” the official said. “Certainly we’re looking for concrete results and for solutions that work for both countries.” Under Peña Nieto, Mexico has greatly increased security along its southern border and has deported hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Central America. But incoming President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is set to be sworn in Dec. 1, may be less willing to cooperate. On Wednesday, he said deportations alone do not solve the problem of immigration. Speaking at a conference, he said he plans to increase the number of work visas granted to Central American immigrants. Members of a migrant caravan that is heading toward the United States. (John Moore / Getty Images) kate.linthicum@latimes.com Twitter: @katelinthicum Tracy Wilkinson in Washington and Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.