Migrant caravan to skip Mexico City, head straight to US border

MEXICO CITY - A migrant caravan making its way through south Mexico for the past 17 days resumed its journey on Tuesday in the state of Oaxaca, deciding to forgo Mexico City and head straight to the United States border.

Irineo Mujica, director of immigrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders) and a leader of the caravan, said in a video posted on social media and cited by local media that the caravan will no longer go first to Mexico's capital, as initially planned.

Instead, migrants will head to the northern state of Sonora, which borders the US state of Arizona, a move that coincides with the bilateral decision to resume non-essential travel between the two countries this week, though that decision applies to documented travelers.

Mujica said he expects to be joined by another caravan in 10 days, and urged migrants in other parts of south Mexico to join the journey toward the US border.

The caravan, composed of some 4,000 migrants, mostly from Central America and Haiti, first departed on Oct 23 from the city of Tapachula, which borders Guatemala, aiming to reach Mexico City to regularize migrants' immigration status before setting off for the US border.

The Central American region is seeing an unprecedented exodus this year. Between January and August, Mexico reported more than 147,000 undocumented migrants, triple the number in 2020, according to figures from the Mexican government.