TEXCALTIC, Mexico_A caravan of Central American immigrants started walking north into Mexico early Sunday, blowing past police and immigration officials as they continued their journey toward the U.S. border.
A group of several thousand immigrants set out before dawn on the only road out of the small Mexican border town of Ciudad Hidalgo. They were headed for the city of Tapachula, about 18 miles away.
It was unclear whether the police planned to stop the group. At one point, a large contingent of federal police officers blocked the road before retreating. At another point, a small group of police watched as members of the caravan passed, some of them running and skipping.
When a small group of immigration officials tried to stop the caravan to persuade its members to apply for political asylum, the caravan swept past them too.
On Friday and Saturday, officials watched as thousands of migrants illegally crossed the Suchiate River, which forms the border between Guatemala and Mexico.
Gerardo Hernandez, head of the civil protection agency in the municipality of Suchiate, Chiapas, said 7,233 immigrants were registered over the past three days at a shelter in Ciudad Hidalgo. He said his agency has been asked to help provide the immigrants with food and shelter.
The caravan left the impoverished and crime-ridden Central American nation of Honduras more than a week ago and its participants began arriving late last week at the Guatemalan border town of Tecun Uman, just across the river from Ciudad Hidalgo.
The migrants say their intent is to cross into the United States. The Trump administration has said it will stop their advance and has threatened Mexico and Central American countries with economic reprisals if they do not stop the migrant group.
President Donald Trump has made the caravan a campaign issue at his rallies in the closing weeks of the U.S. midterm election campaign, calling the bedraggled migrants a threat to U.S. security and saying he would call out the military should the migrants make it to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, under pressure from Trump, has said that no migrants will be allowed to enter the country in an "irregular" manner.
On Friday, Mexican authorities put on a show of force when several thousand caravan participants tried to storm the official Mexican border crossing into Ciudad Hidalgo. With tear gas and police in riot gear, Mexico thwarted the attempt to breach the border, an operation that Trump praised.
The caravan is made up mostly of men but also includes hundreds of women and children, some of whom said they were fleeing violence.
Paola Oviedo, 21, was walking in the heat, hugging her 18-month-old son to her chest. She was panting. They were both sweating profusely.
She said she decided to leave Honduras after facing death threats from her abusive ex-husband. Her son needs his mother, she said.
"I have to do this for his future," she said.
����
(Patrick McDonnell in Mexico City contributed to this report.)
