Migrant caravan: Asylum seekers travel through Mexico as Trump walks back suggestion that migrants throwing stones will be shot at border
Critics say the president is stoking fears about the caravan for political reasons ahead of midterm elections
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Your support makes all the difference.Thousands of refugees and migrants from Central America are walking and hitchhiking northwards through Mexico, with Donald Trump walking back his suggestion that any migrants found throwing stones at the US border could be shot by the military.
In addition to this original group, more than 1,000 migrants in a second caravan that forced its way across the river from Guatemala have begun arriving in the southern Mexico city of Tapachula.
President Trump made clear Thursday he will do everything in his power to stop them, dispatching extra troops, threatening to shut border entirely and saying in an afternoon press conference the military would consider rocks thrown at active troops "firearms". He later said that no migrants would be shot by the American military, but that anyone throwing rocks would be arrested.
The issue is being amplified by the president with less than a week before the midterm elections, and various sources have implied or stated without proof that Democrats and progressive donors are somehow funding the caravan that is composed of individuals and families fleeing dangerous conditions in their home countries in Central America. Others, including Mr Trump, have claimed — again, without proof — that the caravan includes "Middle Easterners". The president also indicated that he has no proof that Middle Easterners are in the caravan.
While numerous news outlets and watchdog groups have tried and failed to find proof for those claims — and none has been provided — Republicans clearly see a winning strategy in trying to tie Democrats to the caravan.
In the contentious Texas Senate race, for example, Senator Ted Cruz has attacked his Democratic opponent, Congressman Beto O'Rourke, and claimed that his campaign has been funding the migrant caravan. That statement was not substantiated with evidence that any of that financial support has occurred.
To see how the day unfolded, follow our live blog below.
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A migrants from El Salvador wait to be attended by Salvadoran migration authorities in La Hachadura, El Salvador, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. A fourth group of about 700 Salvadorans set out from the capital, San Salvador, with plans to walk to the U.S. border, 1,500 miles away. (AP Photo/Diana Ulloa)
Personnel and equipment prepare for departure from Fort Campbell, Kentucky to head down to the US-Mexico border Major Martin Meiners/DVIDS/EPA
A new report looks at the impact travelling countless miles in a caravan has had on child migrants making the arduous journey.
“These are human beings,” said Alex Mensing, an organizer for Pueblo Sin Fronteras, the immigration rights group that organized the caravan. “The children on the caravan don’t know what a border means.”
John Bolton has announced tough new measures against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as migrant caravans travel towards the US-Mexico border — and the same day the United Nations General Assembly called on the Trump administration to lift Cuba’s embargo.
Mr Bolton promised a tough stance by the Trump administration toward "dictators and despots near our shores" and singled out Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua in a speech in Miami, which is home to large numbers of migrants from Cuba and Venezuela.
Leticia Reyes, aunt of migrant Henry Adalid Diaz Reyes, grieves during her nephew's wake at the family's home in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, late Wednesday, 31 October 2018. Guatemalan firefighters confirm the 26-year-old Honduran migrant died of a head wound from a gunshot during a stand-off on the Guatemala-Mexico border where a second caravan of Central American migrants threw rocks and used sticks against Mexico police to push its way across the border and into Mexico.
Erlin Troches, a 43-year-old Honduran migrant from the city of Santa Barbara, carries an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe that was given to him by a priest in southern Mexico, as he walks along with a thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans hoping to reach the US border
Boys playfully try to test the boundaries of stretchy leashes attaching them to an adult, as a thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans hoping to reach the U.S. border takes a rest day in Juchitan, Oaxaca state, Mexico, Wednesday, 31 Oct. 2018.
Britany Tesorero, from El Salvador, poses for a photo at a camp set up by a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants in Juchitan, Mexico, Wednesday, 31 October 2018.
Migrants with small children stand in the back of a parked truck, in hopes that the driver will give them a ride, as a thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans hoping to reach the US border moves onward from Juchitan, Oaxaca state, Mexico, Thursday, 1 November 2018.
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