A migrant caravan 6,000-people strong was working its way up north through Mexico on Friday as an initial wave of 1,300 people began arriving at the Texan city of El Paso – with many of them being immediately bussed north to Democrat-run cities.
Dramatic footage shared on social media showed migrants walking through the Mexican state of Chihuahua, bound for the border. Others were seen clinging to the top of ‘La Bestia’ – the freight train known as The Beast, which runs from Mexico City up to Ciudad Juarez, the border town with El Paso.
The migrants have been heading towards the international boundary for the last few days.
After they trickle into Ciudad Juarez almost all will try and cross into the U.S.
Migrants are seen on Friday walking towards the U.S.-Mexico border, south of Ciudad Juarez
Migrants in El Paso are seen on Friday boarding buses north, away from Texas
Migrants are seen through the border fence lining up to enter
Some could stay in Juarez, trying to make an appointment with U.S. immigration officials via the CBP One app. The app is the legal way for asylum seekers to begin the asylum process in the U.S.
Many migrants opted to try the app – but then decided to cross illegally, and turn themselves over to U.S. Border officials after failing to secure an appointment.
The CBP One app has been riddled with problems, and although some issues have been addressed, U.S. officials have admitted there just aren’t enough appointments for the amount of people requesting them.
On Friday in El Paso, hundreds of migrants showed up at the border wall at an opening in gate number 36.
They queued for most of the day until Border Patrol buses started to arrive to take them to a processing center in the early evening.
The migrant bus is seen on Friday leaving the border processing center
Lines of migrants wait to board the buses out of the processing center near El Paso on Friday
Migrants are seen on Friday boarding the bus to leave the Texas site
El Paso, which spent most of last year as the epicenter of the border crisis, has three larger processing centers that were built in the last 12 months specifically to handle migrant surges at the border.
Although the city is seeing about 1,000 migrant encounters a day – far less than in the current hot spots of Lukeville, Arizona or Eagle Pass, Texas, where ten times that number are crossing – officials here have the ability to quickly ramp up their response if that number peaks.
On Friday, the officials were readying for the imminent arrival of the rest of the migrant caravan.
The group will likely splinter before it reaches the border, with people attempting to cross at different points along the border.
Border Patrol agents from quieter parts of the border have already been dispatched to El Paso, federal sources told DailyMail.com.
City officials have also opened a migrants shelter that can hold hundreds, if necessary.
As night fell in the West Texas desert, on the other side of the border migrants waiting for their chance to surrender to Border Patrol officials started fires for warmth.
The blazes could be seen glowing from the U.S. side of the border wall.
Migrants traveling in a caravan to reach the U.S. border through Mexico bathe in a river, in Mapastepec, Mexico, on Friday
The migrants are seen resting on Friday in Mapastepec, Mexico
Large numbers of families with young children are in the caravan currently moving up north through Mexico
The migrants’ tent encampment is pictured in Mapastepec, Mexico, on Friday
The migrant caravan, seen on Friday, is currently believed to be 6,000 strong but will splinter as it moves north
Migrants rest in the public square in Mapastepec, Mexico on Friday
Earlier this week, a U.S. delegation led by Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, met with Mexico’s president seeking more action to curb a surge of migrants reaching the U.S. border .
The United States has given clear signs, including temporarily closing key border rail crossings into Texas, that it wants Mexico to do more to stop migrants hopping freight cars, buses and trucks to the border.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he got a worried phone call on December 20 from President Joe Biden.
‘He asked, Joe Biden asked to speak with me, he was worried about the situation on the border because of the unprecedented number of migrants arriving at the border,’ López Obrador said Thursday.
‘He called me, saying we had to look for a solution together.’
Mexico, desperate to get the border crossings reopened to its manufactured goods, started to give indications it would crack down a bit.
A Border Patrol agent is seen walking past migrants in El Paso on Friday waiting to be processed
Migrants wrapped in blankets are pictured at the El Paso crossing on Friday
The group are seen waiting to cross into Texas on Friday
Razor wire is seen along the border, with the fence in the background
López Obrador said Thursday that Mexico detained more migrants in the week leading up to Christmas than the United States did, with Mexican detentions rising from about 8,000 per day on December 16 to about 9,500 on Christmas Day.
Mexico already has over 32,000 soldiers and National Guard troopers – about 11 percent of its total forces – assigned to enforcing immigration laws.
But shortcomings were on display this week when National Guard members made no attempt to stop about 6,000 migrants, many from Central America and Venezuela, from walking through Mexico’s main inland immigration inspection point in southern Chiapas state near the Guatemala border.
In the past, Mexico has let such migrant caravans go through, trusting they would tire themselves out walking along the highway.