Tijuana mayor declares humanitarian crisis over migrant caravan

The mayor of Tijuana Juan Manuel Gastelum has declared a humanitarian crisis in his border city and said he was asking the United Nations for aid to deal with the approximately 5,000 Central American migrants, most of whom are camped inside a sports complex.

The comments by the mayor came as city officials and volunteers worked to assist the 4,976 men, women and children who arrived after more than a month on the road. The Trump administration has spent weeks lambasting the caravan, which it said was filled with criminals, gang members, and even terrorists.

The migrants say they are fleeing persecution, poverty, and violence in their home countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

While Trump has declared the migrant caravans an "invasion," and has sent some 5,800 troops to "harden" the border, including with barbed wire.

Manuel Figueroa, who leads the city’s social services department, said Tijuana was bringing in portable toilets and showers, as well as shampoo and soap, but it was not enough.

“Because of the absence, the apathy and the abandonment of the federal government, we are having to turn to international institutions like the UN,” Figueroa said.

Gastelum vowed not to commit the city’s public resources to dealing with the situation. On Thursday, his government issued a statement saying it was requesting help from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The migrant caravan that left Honduras in mid-October was mostly well received by the towns it passed through along the way to the border. Even cities with few resources made sure the migrants had food and a place to rest.

But in those places, the caravan stayed at most two nights with the exception of Mexico City. In Tijuana, many of the migrants who are fleeing violence and poverty are seeking asylum in the US and face the prospect of spending months in the border city before they have the opportunity to speak with a US official.

Gastelum said the Mexican government has talked about sending 20 tons of resources to Tijuana to help but that three-quarters consisted of materials to reinforce the border and only five tons were for the migrants.

The mayor also criticized the federal government for not taking more seriously Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the border if his administration determined Mexico had lost “control” of the situation in Tijuana. “That’s serious,” he said.

The migrants also were receiving support from local churches, private citizens who have been providing food, as well as various agencies of the Baja California state government, which says it identified 7,000 job openings for those who qualify.