[This is the archived version of a blog post that was overtaken by event. The current version is here.]
Despite Guatemala's forceful tactics to break up a massive migrant caravan that smashed through Honduran police over the weekend, as many as 9,000 were still making their way through that Central American country. The Guatemalans have charged the caravan and attempted to block it several times on roads. Reportedly, several hundred migrants were deported back to Honduras, where the caravan began. But the bulk of the caravan, which has split into several groups of about 3,000 each, appears to have shaken off those efforts.
Caravan migrants powering past Guatemalan police now pic.twitter.com/QSslcAznw1
— Todd Bensman (@BensmanTodd) January 16, 2021
The forceful insistence with which the latest caravans have broken through cordons of militarized police in Honduras and Guatemala occurs amid news reports that newly seated President Joe Biden on Thursday will propose to the new Democratic-led congress a general amnesty that would legalize essentially all of the millions of illegal aliens in the United States.
The Associated Press on Sunday confirmed earlier reporting from last week that: "Biden will announce legislation his first day in office to provide a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the United States illegally, according to four people briefed on his plans."
The extent to which news of broad amnesty for anyone who can get inside the United States was motivating this caravan did not appear in press accounts from Latin American reporters moving with the caravan.
Attention now turns to whether the caravan groups can bowl through the Mexican defensive cordon put up on its southern border with Guatemala. Mexico has sent hundreds of troops to bolster a national guard contingent already there which has broken up three or four prior caravans.
Mexican authorities are preparing to block a Central American migrant caravan headed toward the U.S., from entering the country. The National Migration Institute (INM) and the National Guard are prepping along the Suchiate river, the natural border between Mexico and Guatemala. pic.twitter.com/98rEJzm61D
— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) January 15, 2021
The stakes are high; will large populations in the Northern Triangle countries witness this caravan succeeding, setting off a long succession of new ones to follow through the breach to the U.S. southern border?