1,000 strong caravan heading to US border.

[Argent 88]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/migrant-caravan-biden-administration-commitments

This is all we need right now.

A migrant caravan moving from Honduras toward the U.S. border is calling on the incoming Biden administration to honor what it says are "commitments" to the migrants moving north, amid fears of a surge at the border when President-elect Joe Biden enters office.

More than 1,000 Honduran migrants moved into Guatemala on Friday without registering, The Associated Press reported. That is part of a larger caravan that left a Honduran city earlier in the day.

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The outlet reported that they are hoping for a warmer reception when they reach the U.S. border, and a statement issued by migrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, on behalf of the caravan, said it expects the Biden administration to take action.

"We recognize the importance of the incoming Government of the United States having shown a strong commitment to migrants and asylum seekers, which presents an opportunity for the governments of Mexico and Central America to develop policies and a migration management that respect and promote the human rights of the population in mobility," the statement said. " We will advocate that the Biden government honors its commitments."

Biden has promised to reverse many of Trump’s policies on border security and immigration. He has promised to end the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which keeps migrants in Mexico as they await their hearings. The Trump administration has said the program has helped end the pull factors that bring migrants north, but critics say it is cruel and puts migrants at risk.

Biden has also promised a pathway to citizenship for those in the country illegally and a moratorium on deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The migrants’ group also pointed to promises to end the asylum cooperative agreements the administration made with Northern Triangle countries.

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"A new United States Government is an opportunity to work with the Mexican Government to develop a cooperation plan with Central America to address the causes of migration, together with civil society organizations, as well as an opportunity to increase regional cooperation regarding the persons in need of protection, and to dismantle illegal and inhuman programs such as Remain in Mexico, the United States’ Asylum Cooperation Agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as the Title 42 expulsions by the United States authorities," it said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) order that allows the U.S. to quickly remove migrants on public health grounds.

Illegal caravans headed to border due to Biden's 'open door policy': Mark MorganVideo
Biden officials, however, have been keen to send the message to migrants that it will not mean open borders overnight.

"Processing capacity at the border is not like a light that you can just switch on and off," incoming Biden domestic policy adviser Susan Rice told Spanish wire service EFE. "Migrants and asylum seekers absolutely should not believe those in the region peddling the idea that the border will suddenly be fully open to process everyone on Day 1. It will not."

"Our priority is to reopen asylum processing at the border consistent with the capacity to do so safely and to protect public health, especially in the context of COVID-19," she said. "This effort will begin immediately but it will take months to develop the capacity that we will need to reopen fully."

It is unclear how far the migrants will get, and Guatemalan and Mexican governments have indicated they intend to turn them back. But the caravan comes amid fears that the new outlook on immigration and asylum from the Biden administration will fuel a surge at the border.

Acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan said on "America’s News HQ" on Saturday that the caravan could include more than 5,000 migrants and blamed the tone from the incoming administration.

"We're looking at two groups that are well over five thousand. And one of those groups have already gotten through the Guatemala border. And they're on their way to El Rancho, which is about the located centrally in Guatemala," he said. "It's coming. It's already started, just as we promised and anticipated it would with this rhetoric from the new administration on the border."

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President Trump warned this week that ending his policies and increasing incentives would lead to "a tidal wave of illegal immigration, a wave like you’ve never seen before" and that there were already signs of increased flows.

"They’re coming because they think that it’s a gravy train at the end," he said. "It’s going to be a gravy train. Change the name from the caravans, which I think we came up with, to the gravy train because that’s what they’re looking for -- looking for the gravy."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Adam Shaw is a reporter covering U.S. and European politics for Fox News. He can be reached at adam.shaw@foxnews.com.
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[Argent 88]

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras – Honduran migrants began walking toward the Guatemalan border before dawn Friday, driven by deepening poverty and the hope of a warmer reception if they can reach the United States border.

They quickly dispersed along the heavily-trafficked highway to the border town of Agua Caliente, but estimates of their number ranged from 2,000 to more than twice that. Around 4 a.m., young men and entire families carrying sleeping children set out. Some quickly caught rides while others walked along the highway escorted by police.

Mainor Garcia, a 19-year-old laborer from San Pedro Sula, carried a purple knapsack as he walked along the highway early Friday. He said he was scared about the journey, but willing to run the risk. "(Hurricanes) Eta and Iota destroyed all of our homes," he said as he hustled on his way.

MIGRANT CARAVAN OF 2,000 HONDURANS HEADING TO US DESPITE COVID THREAT

"There’s no choice" but to leave, said 25-year-old Oscar Zaldivar, a driver from Cofradia. "You have to leave here, this country because we’re going to die here."

Police had checkpoints set up along the highway, but were just asking for identification documents. Some police with riot gear waited on buses at points along the highway, but they had made no move to stop the migrants.

The Guatemalan government’s Immigration Institute said Friday afternoon that in the course of the day small groups of Honduran migrants had entered the country and about 600 people were voluntarily returned to Honduras. In recent caravans, Guatemalan authorities have stopped small groups of migrants at roadblocks and returned them to Honduras.

"The combination of COVID-19, social exclusion, violence and climate-related disasters that occur at the same time with a magnitude seldom seen before in Central America raises new humanitarian challenges," the International Committee for the Red Cross said in a statement Friday.

President-elect Biden promises immigration bill, pause on deportationsVideo
The previous evening, Santos Demetrio Pineda was one of those who showed up at the San Pedro Sula bus terminal with little more than the clothes on their backs for the long, unlikely journey, made that much harder by the coronavirus pandemic.

"We lost everything in the hurricane," said Pineda, referring to two Category 4 hurricanes that hit Honduras in November. "We can’t just sit around after what happened to us."

"We are going to leave the country, to ask for help wherever they receive us," he said.

The migrants leave with little certainty about how far they will make it. Regional governments appeared more united than ever in stopping their progress.

On Thursday, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute posted videos showing hundreds of agents and National Guard members drilling on the southern border. It said the agents are "keeping vigilant in the states of southern Mexico ... to enforce the immigration law. "

For weeks, a call for a new caravan departing Jan. 15 has circulated on social networks. But previous caravans have been turned back.

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei on Wednesday night decreed a "state of prevention" along the country’s border with Honduras. The decree noted the threat of migrants entering without required documentation and without following pandemic-related screening at the border. Guatemala is requiring proof of a negative COVID-19 test. The decree said more than 2,000 national police and soldiers would be stationed at the border.

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The Mexican government said Wednesday that it and 10 other countries in North and Central America are worried about the health risks of COVID-19 among migrants without proper documents.

The statement by the 11-member Regional Conference on Migration suggests that Mexico and Central America could continue to turn back migrants due to the perceived risks of the pandemic.

The group "expressed concern over the exposure of irregular migrants to situations of high risk to their health and their lives, primarily during the health emergency."

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On Thursday, Mexican officials said they discussed migration with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and raised "the possibility of implementing a cooperation program for the development of northern Central America and southern Mexico, in response to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic and the recent hurricanes in the region."

When hundreds of Hondurans tried to form a caravan last month, authorities stopped them before they even reached the Guatemala border. Other attempted caravans last year were broken up by Guatemalan authorities before they reached Mexico.

[ironglows]

  A small, test caravan..making a move to see if the Biden admin will open the border to lawlessness again !

   ...And he has given them some enticement...saying that you and I will cover all the sickest people that they can drag across a wide open border..

  We may have to build many more hospitals to handle all the hopeless cases that will flood our borders.