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New Caravan of Honduran Migrants Crosses into Guatemala
A caravan of about 2,000 Honduran migrants crossed into Guatemala on Thursday, hoping to make it into the United States, but it is unclear how far they can get.
The caravan left San Pedro Sula on Wednesday, with most of the migrants allowed to enter Guatemala after submitting their documents to Honduran police at the border.
Guatemala's newly inaugurated President Alejandro Giammattei says Mexico has told him it will not let the migrants enter.
Guatemala signed an agreement with the United States last year requiring migrants looking to come to the United States to apply for asylum in the U.S. while staying in Guatemala. The dangerous trip to Guatemala and the possibility of a long wait there for entry into the U.S. are not deterring the migrants, who say they are escaping poverty, gangs, violence and hopelessness in Honduras.
"We have children and we don't want our children to live through what we lived through," one migrant said Thursday.
A woman summed up her reasons for fleeing Honduras when she said, "In our country, you can kill yourself working and you can't buy anything. You can't achieve anything, The salaries are very low. It's barely enough to eat."
Thousands of Central Americans headed to the U.S. border with Mexico in 2018, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to threaten sanctions against Latin American governments that did not try to stop the caravans.
January 17, 2020 at 11:30AM
