Trump Threatens to Punish Honduras Over Immigrant Caravan

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A caravan of as many as 2,000 mostly Honduran migrants began their march north on Friday in San Pedro Sula.CreditCreditJohn Moore/Getty Images

By Kirk Semple

Oct. 16, 2018

MEXICO CITY — President Trump threatened on Tuesday to withhold aid from the Honduran government if it did not halt a mass migration of as many as 2,000 people, mainly from Honduras, who crossed into Guatemala this week with the intention of reaching the United States.

“The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!” President Trump said on his Twitter account.

The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018

The migrants began their march on Friday in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula. Moving on foot and in vehicles, they crossed into Guatemala on Monday, pushed past two police roadblocks and came to a rest for the night in the town of Esquipulas.

Moving on foot and in vehicles, the migrants crossed into Guatemala on Monday, pushed past two police roadblocks and came to a rest for the night in the town of Esquipulas.CreditJorge Cabrera/Reuters

Some estimates put the group’s size as large as 2,000 people.

Tens of thousands of Hondurans and other Central Americans have migrated north in recent years, fleeing rampant violence, poverty or a combination of those factors. Some have occasionally chosen to move in caravans — large, semi-coordinated groups — their size offering participants some degree of security against the many perils that lurk on the migrant trail, including muggings, extortion and rape.

Such caravans have been something of an annual event for years and have mostly happened without much fanfare or international attention.

But a group of migrants earlier this year drew the attention of President Trump, who posted messages on Twitter warning that they posed a threat to American sovereignty. He used their migration to help justify the deployment of the National Guard to the southwest border of the United States.

That caravan, which also included many Hondurans and at one point numbered an estimated 1,200 before diminishing in size, eventually reached the northern border of Mexico, an enormous international media contingent in tow. After a tense standoff at the border crossing in Tijuana, several hundred were eventually allowed through to petition for asylum in the United States, while others melted back into Mexican society, returned to their home countries or attempted to cross into the United States illegally.

During that migration, Mr. Trump also threatened Honduras, saying foreign aid to that nation, as well as to “the countries that allow this to happen,” was “at play.”

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President Trump threatened Honduras by withholding foreign aid unless it stops allowing people to migrate north in caravans bound for the United States.CreditJohn Moore/Getty Images

Katie Waldman, a spokeswoman for the United States Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement on Monday that the current caravan was “a result of well-advertised and well-known catch-and-release loopholes,” referring to undocumented immigrants apprehended at the border who are released to await the processing of their cases.

“Until Congress acts, we will continue to have de facto open borders that guarantees future ‘caravans’ and record numbers of family units entering the country illegally,” Ms. Waldman said, according to The Associated Press.

Despite Mr. Trump’s warning on Tuesday, it remained unclear what the Honduran government could do to bring back the migrants, now that they were on Guatemalan soil. There was no immediate public response from the Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández.

The caravan formed a day after Vice President Mike Pence, at a meeting in Washington, pressed the presidents of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to do a better job stopping their citizens from emigrating.

“Tell your people: Don’t put your families at risk by taking the dangerous journey north to attempt to enter the United States illegally,” Mr. Pence said.