Mexico’s outgoing president offered a new way for the U.S.-bound migrant caravan to stay in Mexico, saying the migrants could remain in the country to work while any with children could send their kids to school.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Oct. 26, that migrants wishing to obtain temporary identification documents, jobs, and/or education for their children could do so by registering for asylum in southern Mexico.
“This plan is only for those who comply with Mexican laws, and it’s a first step towards a permanent solution for those who are granted refugee status in Mexico,” Pena Nieto said in a pre-recorded address broadcast on Friday afternoon.
To qualify for the scheme he called “Estas en Tu Casa” (“Make Yourself at Home”) migrants had to be in the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, Pena Nieto said. The caravan is still in Chiapas but has been moving north in an attempt to reach the United States.
“It is a human right that we are going to defend,” he added.
Rejection
Thousands of migrants refused Mexico’s offer, pledging to continue north.“Our goal is not to remain in Mexico,” 58-year-old Oscar Sosa of Honduras told the Associated Press.
“Our goal is to make it to the (U.S). We want passage, that’s all.”
Other migrants yelled as they voted to reject the offer in a show of hands in the town of Arriaga, where they arrived Friday night. “No, we’re heading north!” they said.
Estimates of Caravan Vary
The migrant caravan started in northern Honduras and traveled across Guatemala to reach Mexico, with many migrants illegally crossing the Suchiate River to enter Mexico.Mexican officials claimed that the caravan was only made up of some 3,600 people on Oct. 24. Alex Mensing, an organizer with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said that the main caravan consists of at least 8,500 people including some 7,000 from Honduras, and has grown in recent days.
Officials in Mexico told El Universal earlier in the week that some 14,000 Hondurans were spread across the main caravans and several others that have started moving north from Honduras in recent days. The officials said the main caravan was composed of 7,333 people. The United Nations said on Oct. 22, that the main caravan had some 7,200 people.