Our top story on Midday edition. A caravan of Central American migrants are attempting to cross the southern border into Mexico. Right now it's a chaotic scene. Hey PBS border reporter Jean Guerrero has been monitoring the story and she joins us now watching him wearing. So as we're speaking group of anywhere from two to three thousand members of the caravan. So basically the entire caravan are trying to get into Mexico so they just went over the bridge a bridge that connects two to Mexico from Ramallah and after breaking through some barriers the watermelon police were trying to stop them from getting onto the bridge. But it appears that they were able to cross that bridge and have now are now faced with another barrier and it's unclear what's going to happen because on the Mexican side of the border you have Mexican federal police that actually set up a blockade there in response to President Trumps tweets demanding that Mexico do something to stop this caravan. But it's very unclear what's going to happen. You have women and children hundreds of women and children babies crying. You know I've been monitoring this situation on Twitter because there's so many reporters on the ground live tweeting this. And you can see videos of how how frightened these people are how malnourish the children are. These are people who are fleeing. In many cases violence. In other cases extreme poverty. But in many of those cases they express a fear of returning home either because they fear starving to death or because they fear being killed. Like I said it's really unclear what's going to happen. Mexico has asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to assist with the situation. I don't see them anywhere in these videos. It's very unclear how the U.N. is supposed to be helping right now there's only use of force. You know Mexican police Guatemalan police and these are people fleeing for their lives. President Trump has threatened to close the U.S. Mexico border down if Mexico lets the migrants head north. What's the official reaction of Mexico to the caravan. Mexico's ambassador to the U.S. was talking on FOX News about how they think that this caravan is politically motivated. And just sort of slandering the caravan which is very interesting because there's been no evidence so far that it is politically motivated. It's a caravan that has self organized. One of the leaders was arrested. In fact one of my sources who is waiting on the Mexican side to make sure that there weren't human rights abuses. I saw a video of him shortly after speaking to him being shoved into a white van by Mexican federal police and Mexican immigration officials. So it's a very tense situation and the comments that we're getting from the Mexican government are somewhat contradictory. But I did speak with Mexico's ambassador just a couple of weeks ago because this is an entirely new Mexico has been enforcing U.S. immigration law for quite a while now. And there have been human rights concerns associated with that for a while because Mexico's federal police and military have been implicated in crimes against migrants including massacres. So I sat down with him to talk about some of those concerns. Currently Mexico helps the United States by detaining and deporting tens of thousands of Central Americans who are caught crossing the border illegally. We always learn from that. But what I want what I want to emphasize is what we do on migration policy. We do it because it's a our best interest. Or be it is established in our own laws. So yes there is a an important number of nationals from Central America enter irregularly Mexico. What about an argument that these are people who are fleeing violence. Human rights attorneys say that Mexico is actually breaking international refugee law on behalf of the United States by by deporting these people back to Central America. What does Mexico say about that. Well I would respectfully say that they're wrong. And I you know I think that I would invite them to have a conversation with us about what is actually going on. If if Mexico decides that it's going to deport or repatriate Central American nationals because they enter our country with the appropriate documentation that in a sense also has to do anything with the United States certainly we must do that in a humane way with absolute respect of human rights in accordance with international law and that's what we do. But every country has a right to enforce its own immigration laws. What about the fact that some of these people are fleeing violence heading to United States and the same criminal organizations that have power in Central America extends through Mexico precisely because organized crime is international nowadays. We must work with countries like the United States and Central America as the United States must work with laws in Central America and vice versa and I think that you know rightly so. But these these you know these NGOs are the centers. I think that they would agree that it's also very risky for people to fall into the hands of human smugglers and traffickers and the sort of cooperation that we're having is very much center on that. And can you just before we finished ANSWER ME IT WILL. WILL Mexico require asylum seekers from Central America to apply for asylum in Mexico rather than in the United States. Is that a possibility. Or is that what we're looking at right now is simply the fact that Mexico itself has recently encountered a significant increase. In requests for in our case refuge which is you know translated inside asylum in the United States. The numbers have grown exponentially in the past three to four or five years. And what we want to do is establish best practices from a regional perspective that first we need to improve our capacity to address that phenomenon in Mexico in respective of the United States. And at the same time I believe that we want to work with the United States to make sure that you know asylum systems anywhere are not abused. Mexico will soon have a new president Jean has president elect Manuel Lopez Obrador weighed in on whether cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico on migrants will continue when he takes office December 1st. So he's been very careful to say that he wants a positive relationship with the U.S. but he has said that he's not going to do the dirty work for the U.S. when it comes to people who are fleeing for their lives. So that's a change from the current administration. And as hard as this caravan he said that he would provide work says temporary work visas for Central Americans who are coming on these caravans. But he doesn't take office till December so in the meantime we don't know what's going to happen. Q PBS border reporter Jean Guerrero thanks for being with us. Thank you.
UPDATE: 12:25 p.m., Oct. 19, 2018
Migrants traveling in a mass caravan burst through a Guatemalan border fence and streamed by the thousands toward Mexican territory on Friday, defying Mexican authorities' entreaties for an orderly crossing and U.S. President Donald Trump's threats of retaliation.
On the Mexican side of a border bridge, they were met by a phalanx of police with riot shields. About 50 managed to push their way through before officers unleashed pepper spray and the rest retreated.
The gates were closed again, and police used a loudspeaker to address the masses, saying, "We need you to stop the aggression."
Mexican federal police chief Manelich Castilla, speaking from the border town of Ciudad Hidalgo, told Foro TV that his forces achieved their main objective of preventing a violent breach by the 3,000-plus migrants. In a separate interview with Milenio television, he accused people not part of the caravan of attacking police with firecrackers and rocks.
"It will be under the conditions that have been said since the start," Castilla said. "Orderly, with established procedures, never through violence or force as a group of people attempted."
The chaos calmed somewhat as migrants formed lines in a mass of humanity stretching across the bridge. Some returned to the Guatemalan side to buy water and food.
But others, tired of waiting, jumped off the bridge into the Suchiate River. Migrants organized a rope brigade to ford its muddy waters, and some floated across on rafts operated by local residents who usually charge a dollar or two to make the crossing.
Cristian, a 34-year-old cell phone repairman from San Pedro Sula, said he left Honduras because gang members had demanded protection payments of $83 a month, a fifth of his income. It was already hard enough to support his four daughters on the $450 he makes, so he closed his small business instead.
Cristian, who declined to give his last name because the gangsters had threatened him, estimated that about 30 percent of the migrants want to apply for refugee status in Mexico, while the rest want to reach the United States.
"I want to get to the States to contribute to that country," Cristian said, "to do any kind of work, picking up garbage."
Police and immigration agents let small groups of 10, 20, 30 people through the gates if they wanted to apply for refugee status. Once they file a claim, they can go to a shelter to spend the night.
Eric Lagos Rodriguez from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, and his family turned themselves over to authorities to apply.
"We couldn't go on like this," Lagos said, "we're traveling with six children."
As dusk neared, police were relieved by fresh officers and reformed ranks. Migrants continued to hang on the gates, yelling "there are children here" and "we are hungry." Back on the Guatemalan side, some people set up tarp shelters.
Earlier in the day, thousands of migrants, some waving Honduran flags and carrying umbrellas to protect against the sun, arrived at the Guatemalan side of the river, noisily demanding they be allowed to cross.
"One way or another, we will pass," they chanted, climbing atop U.S.-donated military jeeps parked at the scene. Young men tugged on the fence, finally tearing it down, prompting the huge crowd of men, women and children to rush past and over the bridge.
Edwin Santos of San Pedro Sula was one of the first to race by, clutching the hands of his father and wife.
"We are going to the United States!" he shouted. "Nobody is going to stop us!"
Acner Adolfo Rodriguez, 30, one of the last through, said he hoped to find work and a better life far from the widespread poverty and gang violence in Honduras, one of the world's deadliest countries.
"May Trump's heart be touched so he lets us through," Rodriguez said.
The U.S. president has made it clear to Mexico that he is monitoring its response. On Thursday he threatened to close the U.S. border if Mexico didn't stop the caravan. Later that day he tweeted a video of Mexican federal police deploying at the Guatemalan border and wrote: "Thank you Mexico, we look forward to working with you!"
Mexican officials said those with passports and valid visas — only a tiny minority of those trying to cross — would be let in immediately.
Migrants who want to apply for refuge in Mexico were welcome to do so, they said, but any who decide to cross illegally and are caught will be detained and deported.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Friday with President Enrique Pena Nieto and Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray in Mexico City, with the caravan high on the agenda.
At a news conference with Videgaray, Pompeo called illegal migration a "crisis" and emphasized "the importance of stopping this flow before it reaches the U.S. border," while also acknowledging Mexico's right to handle the crisis in a sovereign fashion.
"Mexico will make its decision," Pompeo said. "Its leaders and its people will decide the best way to achieve what I believe are our shared objectives."
At Mexico City's airport before leaving, Pompeo said four Mexican federal police officers had been injured in the border standoff and expressed his sympathy.
On Thursday, Videgaray asked the U.N. for help processing what Mexico expects to be a large number of asylum requests.
But Jose Porfirio Orellana, a 47-year-old farmer from Yoro province in Honduras, said he has his sights set on the United States due to woeful economic conditions in his country.
"There is nothing there," Orellana said.
Migrants have banded together to travel en masse regularly in recent years, but this caravan was unusual for its huge size, said Victor Clark Alfaro, a Latin American studies professor at San Diego State University. By comparison, a caravan in April that also attracted Trump's ire numbered about 1,000.
"It grabs one's attention that the number of people in these kinds of caravans is on the rise," Clark Alfaro said. "It is migration of a different dimension."
Elizabeth Oglesby, a professor at the University of Arizona's Center for Latin American Studies, said people join caravans like this because it's a way to make the journey in a relatively safe manner and avoid having to pay thousands of dollars to smugglers. She disputed Pompeo's assertion that that there is a "crisis" of migration.
"The border is not in crisis. This is not a migration crisis. ... Yes, we are seeing some spikes in Central Americans crossing the border, but overall migration is at a 40-year low," Oglesby said.
Speaking on the Televisa network, Videgaray did not seem concerned about Trump's threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border, saying it had to be viewed in light of the hotly contested U.S. midterm elections, in which Trump has made border security a major campaign issue.
Videgaray noted that 1 million people transit the border legally every day, and about $1 million in commerce crosses every minute.
"Before taking decisions of that kind," Videgaray said, "there would be many people in the United States ... who would consider the consequences."
