Immigration security

Thousands more Central American migrants approach U.S.-Mexico border

Thousands more migrants are heading toward the U.S.-Mexican border, hoping to gain permanent residency here even as the Trump administration tightens rules on detention and obtaining political asylum.

Some 2,000 migrants arrived in Mexico this week, forcing officials of Chiapas state to declare an emergency. 5,000 more migrants had set out toward the U.S. on Monday, according to the Mexico News Daily.

Meanwhile, "Pueblos Sin Frontreras," a group often cited as being behind the caravans since last year, denied on its Facebook page in a post on Tuesday that it is organizing the large groups and leading them on the long journey to the U.S. border from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

“Nonetheless, as defenders of human rights of the migrants," the group wrote, "we are in solidarity with the families, children, men and women that see as their only option to flee their communities and migrate.”

Pueblos Sin Frontreras assailed Mexican authorities for what the group says is their failure to honor previous promises to treat the migrants humanely by giving them visitor visas on humanitarian grounds, and are instead adopting a hard line to keep them from getting close to the United States.