A mob of migrants tried to overwhelm U.S. Border Patrol agents and troops but were mostly driven back to Tijuana after tear gas was fired to disperse the crowd.
“I’m leaving, I didn’t want to stay here suffering,” said one Honduras national, Ricci. “It was a long-suffering [sic], and very costly and I had hope before, but now that I see the situation, how it is, I’ve lost hope and I want to go home to my children,” she added.
The group of around 100 migrants arrested for rushing the border was being transported to their home countries on buses, García noted.
The migrant caravans are mainly composed of Guatemalan, Honduran, and El Salvadorean nationals. At least 6,000 were in Tijuana as of Wednesday. Over 1,000 others were in Mexicali, also in Baja California.
Thousands more are moving north through Mexico toward the border.
No Serious Injuries
No one has been seriously injured besides a few “unfortunate incidents,” Mexican Interior Minister Alfonso Navarrete said on Nov. 28 in a broadcast from a government event, reported Reuters.“There was one man who climbed on top of a trailer on a highway, he lost his balance and he fell off. Another, a migrant of Central American nationality, was run over. But no children, no women, no pregnant women, no elderly, no youth, not even the violent group [of migrants] have been seriously hurt,” he said.”
He also announced that “100 violent migrants have been repatriated.” Mexican officials have urged the migrants to accept asylum in Mexico, an offer many have rejected, or return to their countries.
‘Self-Defense’
In a statement on Monday, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that despite the migrants attacking American law enforcement officers, no migrants were seriously injured.“Our Border Patrol agents and officers responded admirably and responsibly to the events on Sunday. It is a testament to their training and professionalism that no one was injured,” she said.
“The accepted use of nonlethal force (also used by the Obama Administration in 2013) prevented further injury to agents and a mass illegal rush across the border. We will not shy away from protecting our people,” she said.
She also said that the officers who fired tear gas were defending themselves after migrants launched projectiles and rocks at them.
“It is shocking that I have to explain this, but officers can be seriously or fatally injured in such attacks. Self-defense isn’t debatable for most law-abiding Americans,” she said.