Two Arrested Amid Allegations of Migrant Caravan Origins
How did the migrant caravan approaching the U.S. snowball in size from several hundred to more than 7,000?
More than 7,000 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala grouped together this week to travel toward the United States’ southern border in a massive migrant caravan.
Vice President Mike Pence and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez met to discuss those responsible for organizing the migration, which Hernandez blamed on local political leftist groups with financial support from Venezuela.
VP Mike Pence says the Honduran president told him the caravan was organized “by leftist organizations and financed by Venezuela,” an unsubstantiated allegation.
“And the Democrats, maybe?” Pres. Trump suggests. Asked for proof, the president says, “You’re going to find out.” pic.twitter.com/YIxAQeTPBd
— Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) October 23, 2018
This caravan snowballed in size from the several hundred who rallied at the initial planning from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. By the time the caravan crossed into Guatemala on October 15, an estimated 3,000 individuals were among them.
Bartolo Fuentes, Founder of the Migrant Caravan?
The gravitational attraction to a mass migration occurred with the assistance of Honduran journalist and former member of Congress, Bartolo Fuentes, and the reach of a local news channel.
As editor and director of the website Honduras Laboral and the magazine Vida Laboral, Fuentes has shared his leftist politics and migrant and labor force activism for years.
Fuentes has been vocal in his opposition to President Hernandez, who was inaugurated earlier this year in an election that much of the population deemed fraudulent. The United States chose to honor the results and supported Hernandez, but the unrest following the election resulted in more than 30 deaths.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez at the US Department of State in June 2018. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)
About two-thirds of the Honduran population already lived in poverty in 2017, but that has since increased by six percent, according to local think tank FOSDEH. Frustrated with the political climate, unsolved violence and lack of resources exacerbated by drought, many are choosing to leave.
This month, Fuentes became aware of several groups throughout Honduras who were preparing to leave, and decided to act as a point person to coordinate their efforts. At the time, there were no more than 200 individuals involved, according to Fuentes.
However, an interview with a popular Honduran cable news channel, HCH, publicized the caravan highlighting the increased safety of traveling in a group and the affordability of not having to pay a smuggler to guide the way. They cast Fuentes as the lead spokesperson and described the caravan as a way that would deliver the migrants safely north, and he started receiving calls to join.
“No one expected this human avalanche,” Fuentes said to the Daily Beast.
After crossing into Guatemala, the caravan doubled in size once again, attracting El Salvadoran and Guatemalan individuals also struggling with limited resources and financial opportunity.
As the caravan attracted more press and more people, Guatemalan police detained Fuentes and deported him to Honduras.
“I’m worried about my security,” Fuentes told the Daily Beast following his deportation. “There’s an image of Honduras that the government wants to put forward for political reasons. But that’s just not reality…”
President Hernandez has pointed the finger at Fuentes in turn and says he organized the caravan to promote opposition to the Honduran government.
Second Arrest Related to Migrant Caravan, Irineo Mujica
Irineo Mujica, a migrant spokesperson and organizer of a major caravan that traveled the same route last spring, was also arrested in conjunction with a demonstration in Ciudad Hidalgo on October 18.
A video shows Irineo Mujica being shoved into a van by Mexican immigration agents and federal police https://t.co/wX8pBIOkjV.
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) October 19, 2018
Some reports described Mujica slashing vehicle tires and inciting unrest, while others called it a peaceful demonstration.
He was released on Saturday but had to temporarily forfeit his papers, which show Mujica’s dual citizenship in Mexico and the US.
Isn’t it typical from us Americans, and our government to try to find one person who masterminds and unites a horde of people to plan and carry out anything that we ourselves refuse to understand, and acknowledge any responsibility for causing it ?
It has to be one guy or maybe a group of guys undermining our efforts not a collective idea or purpose because it’s actually harder to explain the actual motives that can cause this sort of thing.
We hear it daily through our hard conservative and right wing media, and others blame George Soros, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or CNN for agitating two thirds of our citizens to march against Trump and his GOP cohorts; but the populace is never capable of putting two plus two together until someone rings the bell.
This ludicrous and irresponsible thought process is uniquely american because in other countries their citizens know who is at fault most of the time, and they collectively demostrate their displeasure at the state trying to control them.
The caravan of immigrants coming this way is not the work of one single man nor is the complot of a foreign power undermining our democracy.
It’s decades of foreign policy playing big brother in Latin America appointing leaders that cater to our wishes as we see fit while we steal or con them out of their natural resources.
Agriculture is practically dead in Latin America because someone told them we can feed them cheaper than they could produce corn for their own consumption.
All it takes is a couple of years to do the deed, and their tables went empty because most of them are unprepared to do anything else or face the changes that are coming up in this century and for the future.
We move our manufacturing plants looking for cheap labor and they abandon their fields and trade them for a miserable wage and move to the city and start paying rent, buying groceries, etc.
And they can’t keep up…so poverty sets in.
And poverty drives migration…it’s natural evolution. It cannot be stopped or curved. It will happen and there will be conflict because humankind has yet to figure out how to share and be equal with one another.
Probably organized by Trump to cause more trouble.
The Honduran government iama an illegal one. Supported by the Trump administration.
I say it is the Trumphy administration.him the ring leader he sold it out long before March started, he talked about it all the time just as he did when he told Putin let out the emails, yup it is him.
Only one man and his party has anything significant to gain by this….that would be the orange buffoon and his minions in The GOP! How else can they keep their base afraid of brown skinned people except by telling them that they will over run our borders without more military and in the end the budget killing wall!
My Jehovah said Lucifer will deceive you .he will send his demon to lie to you about my lost sheep.cause if you can’t help my children and provid them with a glass of water then you cannot love me like you say you do .so remember i don’t forget . So people open you ears and see what this demon Donald Trump is saying wake up and listen to The Devil in his heart .
Is this chaos created by CIA as they are infamous for doing these kind of uprisings.