Migrant Caravan Sought to Promote Awareness of Suffering in Northern Triangle.

AutorRodriguez, George

The migrant caravan that raised the ire of US President Donald Trump as it made its way from Central America to Mexico in March is an eight-year-old Central American tradition known as the Viacrucis Migrante (Migrant Way of the Cross).

During the caravan, which has been held since 2010 to coincide with Holy Week, hundreds of undocumented migrants contribute to create awareness about the plight of people living in the violence--and poverty-ridden region known as the Triangulo Norte de Centroamerica (Northern Triangle of Central America) (NotiCen, Jan. 7, 2016, Sept. 1, 2016,Jan. 26, 2017), made up of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. About 80% of this year's participants, approximately 1200 people, were mainly Hondurans, the majority women, children, and young men.

Participants in the Viacrucis--most of the time on foot, at times riding buses--follow the perilous route from Mexico's southern border with Guatemala to its northern border with the United States, in the hope that traveling in a large group will keep them from abuse by corrupt police or by ruthless organized crime networks.

But this year, they faced yet an additional threat: President Trump.

A week after the group began the journey into Mexico from the border town of Tapachula on March 25, Trump tweeted messages wrongly depicting the peaceful caravan's participants as a threat to US security. "Our country is being stolen" by undocumented migrants, he wrote.

Trump then moved 4,000 National Guard troops to reinforce the US Border Patrol on the Mexican border, while he criticized previous administrations' policies regarding border security (SourceMex, April 18, 2018).

On April 1, with the Viacrucis thousands of kilometers away from the US, Trump wrote, "Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. 'Caravans' coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!"

Trump said that one of the migrants' aims in seeking to enter US territory was to "take advantage" of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy, which Trump has in the crosshairs. DACA allows undocumented adults who were brought to the US as children by their parents to avoid deportation and apply for work permits.

The following day, Trump tweeted again, now referring directly to Mexico.,

"Mexico has the absolute power not to let these...

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