Visits: 2
As thousands of Central American children, parents, elderly and other adults intent on migrating to the United States awoke from a night sleeping on concrete in far-southern Mexico, President Donald Trump resumed tweeting about the migrant caravan as the fault of Democrats and a danger to the U.S.
The caravan of migrants mostly from Guatemala and Honduras bedded down Sunday night on the concrete of a town square in Tapachula, Mexico, but awoke Monday determined to resume their arduous journey to the U.S. border still some 1,700 miles away.
Trump, meanwhile, in a series of tweets asserted that “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners” are amid the crowd, for which he offered no evidence. He also again said Democrats are to blame for not working with his administration on immigration reform.
“Every time you see a Caravan, or people illegally coming, or attempting to come, into our Country illegally, think of and blame the Democrats for not giving us the votes to change our pathetic Immigration Laws! Remember the Midterms! So unfair to those who come in legally,” Trump tweeted Monday morning.
He went on to tweet that the Mexican federal police have been unable to stop the sea of humanity. The Mexican officers have been monitoring the caravan since the crowds breached a fence Friday at the Mexico-Guatemalan border and pushed past border patrol agents.
“Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States,” Trump tweeted Monday. “Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws!”
The president also blasted the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — the countries that make up the so-called “Northern Triangle” of Central America — for failing to prevent the exodus of people from their country. He threatened to cut off aid.
“Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S. We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them,” Trump tweeted Monday.
Trump offered no evidence that anyone from the Middle East is with the Central American migrants. An ABC News crew traveling with the group has also seen no evidence to support the president’s claim.
The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, dismissed Trump’s claim as a diversion from other issues, particularly health care, ahead of the midterm elections.
The migrants in the caravan, many of whom are trudging north on worn shoes or bare feet, with some fainting from dehydration along the way, say they are fleeing violence and murderous gangs in their homelands.
They have been warned by Mexican federal officials that they entered that country illegally and have been advised to go to shelters and apply for asylum to legally remain in the country, at least temporarily.
But many of the those in the caravan told ABC News that they believe the offer of asylum is a ruse to round them up for deportation.