Washington, D.C. (January 19, 2020) - The
second Honduran caravan since Joe Biden won the presidential election will not reach Mexico on any significant number despite swelling into an angry, police-assaulting freight train of some 9,000 people. Guatemalan resolve, planning, and tailored crowd-control tactics implemented by more than 5,000 soldiers successfully subdued the aggressive mob.
By the end of Monday, at least 1,600 migrants had been deported to Honduras with deportations
continuing into the night. A bus home was a far more sure thing than reaching the new Joe Biden administration and its promises of unobstructed, permanent lives in the United States, and now possible amnesty.
At least
21 who later tested positive for Covid were among them.
View the full article at: https://cis.org/Bensman/Final-Word-Latest-Honduras-Migrant-Caravan-Probably
The Trump administration had threatened to cut off foreign assistance to these governments unless they worked harder to break up caravans, and they did. But is there growing recriminations of the sort that suggest a gradual erosion of political resolve to halt the next caravan?
Honduras, which just last month
used force to break up the previous U.S.-bound caravan, on Monday issued calls "to the national and international community" to investigate "the actions carried out by the Guatemalan security forces." With Trump exiting the White House, Honduras obviously felt emboldened to add its official voice to a growing cacophony of human rights advocacy groups angry that Guatemala had used force to stop this caravan. It seems unlikely that Honduras will do anything to break up the next caravan and would return to the old familiarity as an unobstructed transit nation.
On behalf of Guatemala, Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo Vila
called out Honduras for a failure of will and tactics that put the hot potato in his country. He said that instead of Honduran promises to deploy a large contingent of security forces, the Honduran police who were deployed ended up accompanying the migrants "to our borders, where unfortunately we saw how violently they entered, violating Guatemalan territorial sovereignty."
Will a domino effect knock over Guatemalan and Mexican resolve next?
