Migrants in Tijuana weigh options after court blocks Trump’s asylum ban for illegal border crossers

Herson Cordonez, a 29-year-old Honduran, said the actions of a few migrants were tainting the image of the 4,000 to 6,000 in the caravan, not all of whom have yet reached Tijuana. “We are not criminals, we are migrant workers,” Cordonez said, adding that he was considering trying to get into Canada if the U.S. doesn’t want him.

Tijuana officials said late Monday they had arrested 34 caravan members for drug possession, public intoxication, disturbing the peace and resisting police, and they would be deported to their home countries.

Fortified

Confrontation

This city of migrants has turned on the caravan of thousands of Central American migrants that has roiled the border town.

“This is an invasion!” shouted Luis Alexis Mendoza, 30, a bespectacled carpenter who was among scores of protesting Tijuana residents staging an anti-caravan demonstration Sunday that culminated in a standoff with riot police on the street where more than 2,000 Central Americans were being housed in a sports facility. “We demand respect! We demand that our laws be followed.”

He and others denounced caravan members — mostly Honduran nationals — as “criminals,” “bums,” and “freeloaders,” among other negative characterizations used to describe the Central Americans.

New arrivals

Protesters sang the Mexican national anthem and waved Mexican flags in a loud display of nationalism and anti-caravan sentiment.A march by protesters through downtown took on the character of a mob as angry demonstrators tried to storm the sports facility housing caravan participants, who began arriving last week in Tijuana after a month on the road.

Word that angry Mexican protesters were approaching the sports complex sent many migrants running back inside. Fear and uncertainty reverberated in the sports facility.

“We feel trapped,” said Jose Antonio Paz, 32, who traveled from the city of El Progreso, Honduras, with his wife and four daughters. “People came after us with rocks. How can we defend ourselves?”

Protests and arrest

Police wearing helmets and carrying plastic shields rebuffed the demonstrators’ efforts to rush the sports facility.

No injuries were reported in scuffles between police and protesters, who lingered for hours outside the concrete barricades sealing entrances to the makeshift shelter.

But the episode highlighted the stunning hostility that the caravan has encountered in a city of 1.6 million that has long been a way station for U.S.-bound migrants — mostly from Mexico but multitudes from Central America as well.

After traveling nearly 3,000 miles, enduring sweltering heat, tropical downpours, chilly evenings and endless stretches of mountains and desert during more than a month on the road, Ana Lidia Cruz acknowledged being somewhat deflated upon her arrival to this sprawling border city.

“Everywhere in Mexico, people treated us so nicely — they gave us food, water, places to stay,” said Cruz, 38, who was seated beneath a metal sculpture of dolphins in the seaside Playas de Tijuana district. “But here, they don’t seem to want us. We’re all tired, and a bit disillusioned.”

She and her two children, Honduran citizens, are among the members of the migrant caravan that drew the ire of President Trump and became an incendiary issue in the run-up to the U.S. midterm election.

Food and shelter