Hundreds of Guatemala Migrants Set out for US

Officials estimated that between 7,000 and 9,000 migrants have entered Guatemala from Honduras for days now, including many families and children, a spokesman for Guatemala's official immigration agency Alejandra Mena told CNN on Saturday.

Thousands of migrants from Honduras are heading to the United States, escaping from poverty intensified by hurricanes and the pandemic.

This migrants caravan pose a tough challenge for President-elect Joe Biden, who has pledged to ease asylum rules.

Guatemala's Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged Honduran authorities to exert more efforts to "contain the massive departure of its inhabitants."

The National Institute of Migration in Honduras said on social media it has reinforced three border points between the two countries with immigration inspectors.

"The government of Guatemala regrets this violation of national sovereignty and calls on the governments of Central America to take measures to avoid putting their inhabitants at risk amid the health emergency due to the pandemic," Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said.

Guatemalan soldiers, many wearing helmets and carrying shields and sticks, tried to block the migrants on a highway in Chiquimula.

Hundreds of people were seen, in a video distributed by Guatemala's immigration agency, scuffling with the soldiers, pushing them back and running through their lines.

Forces have stopped many; however, some of them managed to break past a police blockade in Vado Hondo, near Chiquimula in eastern Guatemala.

The migrants are expected to face continued obstacles along their route, as the Guatemalan authorities set up checkpoints, blocked parts of the caravan not far from where it entered Guatemala and could begin returning some of the migrants home by bus, the Associated Press reported.

On their part, the Mexican authorities have deployed additional troops and immigration officers along the country’s southern border in anticipation of the caravan.

“In our national territory, we have to guarantee orderly, safe and regular migration, with respect for human rights and humanitarian policies,” Francisco Garduño Yáñez, head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, said in a statement on Friday.