The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement that it would close lanes at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossings from Tijuana to allow the Department of Defense to install barbed wire and position barricades and fencing. “CBP has been and will continue to prepare for the potential arrival of thousands of people migrating in a caravan heading toward the border of the United States,” Pete Flores, the agency’s director of field operations in San Diego, said in a statement, citing a “potential safety and security risk.” 
 
 The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a firm stance against the caravan, which began its journey north on Oct. 13 and briefly clashed with security forces in the south of Mexico early on its route. A U.S. Marine helps to make a concertina wire barricade at the U.S. Mexico border in preparation for the arrival of a caravan of migrants at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego, California, U.S., November 13, 2018. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he would travel to the border area on Wednesday, his first visit since the military announced that over 7,000 U.S. troops would go to the area as the caravan of mostly Hondurans has made its way through Mexico. To the thousands of Central American migrants making their way through Mexico's Pacific coast state of Nayarit, the prospect of meeting a hostile reception at the border is nothing new. REUTERS/Mike Blake 
 
 Some 400 migrants who broke away from the main caravan in Mexico City arrived in the border city of Tijuana on Tuesday by bus, according to a Reuters witness.
– American troops deployed to the border installed barbed wire and barricades Tuesday as the first members of a migrant caravan arrived in Tijuana—with thousands more to come. US Customs and Border Protection said it was "hardening" the border "in preparation for the migrant caravan and the potential safety and security risk that it could cause," the AP reports. The agency said several lanes at the busy San Ysidro and Otay Mesa border crossings would be closed to allow the Defense Department to install fortifications. Several hundred migrants traveling by bus arrived in Tijuana on Tuesday. The main group of around 6,000 mostly Honduran migrants began moving north from Guadalajara on Tuesday as another group of 1,300 migrants arrived in Mexico City. Migrants who spoke to the media in Tijuana said they were not deterred by the US border crackdown. "I prefer to be in detention in the United States than to return to my country, where I know they are going to kill me for being different,” transgender woman Nelvin Mejía told Reuters. "Last month, they killed my partner, and I do not want to end up like that." (The White House has tightened the rules on claiming asylum.)