Migrant caravan heading to US-Mexico border is largest in more than a year

The massive migrant caravan making its way through Mexico to the US border is the largest in more than a year – with an estimated 8,000 asylum seekers currently en route.

Migrant families — primarily from Cuba, Haiti and Honduras — set off for the United States on Sunday, were walking more than nine miles from the Mexican southern border city Tapachula to get to Alvaro Obregón.

Their Christmas Eve dinner comprised sandwiches, a bottle of water and a banana handed out by a local church, and they spent Christmas night sleeping on cardboard or plastic under awnings and tents.

They are now once again inching towards the US southern border, marking the largest migrant caravan approaching the US since June 2022.

But radical migrant-rights activist Luis Garcia Villagran, who is accompanying the group, has warned that the caravan could grow to 15,000 people by the time it reaches the border, carrying signs reading “Exodus from poverty.”

“We won’t stop — we’ll keep walking,’’ he vowed.

The influx in new migrants threatens to further strain the United States’ already overburdened Border Patrol.

As many as 10,000 migrants were arrested each day at the southwest border this month, US Customs and Border Patrol officials say.

The total number of migrant encounters in December has also already surpassed 200,000, and the Mexican government has said it has detected about 680,000 migrants moving through the country in the first 11 months of 2023.

Last week, the US Customs and Border Patrol halted railway operations at international crossings into Texas to try to curb the massive migration into the country.

“CBP is continuing to surge all available resources to safely process migrants in response to increased levels of migrant encounters at the Southwest Border, fueled by smugglers peddling disinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals,” the agency said in a statement at the time.

“After observing a recent resurgence of smuggling organizations moving migrants through Mexico via freight trains, CBP is taking additional actions to surge personnel and address this concerning development, including in partnership with Mexican authorities.”

But border patrol agents say they have become overwhelmed by the surge in migrants, with the migrants outnumbering agents 200 to 1 at one Texas crossing.

The National Border Patrol Council said “agents are more than willing to sacrifice holidays to protect our fellow Americans, but what we are doing is not enforcing our laws; because of bad policy, our government is allowing cartels to control our border,” it said in a statement to NewsNation.

Federal officials are now set to meet with their Mexican counterparts in Mexico City to stem the tide of migrants coming into the US.

The Mexican government has already said it is willing to help try to stop migrants from crossing its country and White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said Biden and Mexican President Andrés  Manuel López Obrador shared concerns about the “dramatic” increase, according to the BBC.

But Obrador has said he is urging the Biden administration to ease up on its restrictive sanctions against the lefty governments of Cuba and Venezuela, where about 20% of the 617,865 migrants whom US agents encountered at the border between October and November were from.

He also said he wants to see the US dole out more money to struggling Latin American countries, where some migrants say they are fleeing from in search of better economic opportunities.

Among those seeking to represent US interests in Mexico City on Wednesday are Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkasand White House Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall.

With Post wires.