The first wave of migrants from the Central American caravan has arrived in the Mexican city of Tijuana — about 80 members of the LGBT community, some of whom were seen scaling a fence along the coastal border community.
They split off from the larger group of more than 3,600 migrants in Mexico City after what Honduran migrant Cesar Mejia told reporters was weeks of discriminatory treatment by locals and other travelers, according to NPR.
Several people jumped or crawled through openings in the fence onto US soil Sunday but quickly ran back when Border Patrol agents approached, Fox 5 San Diego reported.
“Whenever we arrived at a stopping point the LGBT community was the last to be taken into account in every way. So our goal was to change that and say, ‘This time we are going to be first,’ ” Mejia said.
The group in Tijuana included Hondurans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans, including transgender men and women, and also several children.
Most plan to use their status as members of a persecuted class to request asylum in the United States as early as Thursday, the news outlet reported.
“We are fleeing a country where there’s a lot of crime against us,” an unidentified transgender woman told reporters.
On Sunday, they arrived at the tony enclave of Coronado in Playas de Tijuana, a few miles from the San Diego port of entry.
They were dropped off by Mexican immigration officials who had been alerted of the migrants’ arrival in nearby Mexicali. But when they arrived, they were met with anger from local residents.
“We aren’t safe here,” a woman who lives in the neighborhood said. “There could be someone within your group that could hurt us.”
About 400 additional migrants also arrived in Tijuana on Tuesday by bus, a witness told Reuters. Larger groups are expected in the next few days, according to human rights groups.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he would travel to the border area Wednesday, his first visit since the military announced that more than 7,000 US troops would go to the area as the caravan trekked through Mexico.
The US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that it would close lanes at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossings from Tijuana to allow for the installation of barbed wire and barricades.
“CBP has been and will continue to prepare for the potential arrival of thousands of people migrating in a caravan heading towards the border of the United States,” Pete Flores, the agency’s director of field operations in San Diego, said in a statement.
President Trump, who described the caravan as an “invasion,” ordered the troop deployment ahead of last week’s midterm elections. Critics slammed the move as a costly political stunt catering to his conservative base.
“We don’t do stunts in this department,” Mattis said recently.
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