Mexican security officials have reportedly broken up a sizable new “caravan” of migrants seeking to travel from southern Mexico to the U.S. border.
Police and migration officials headed off the caravan, which had assembled for the fourth time in recent days, shortly before dawn Sunday on the edge of the southern town of Huixtla.
Several migrants were arrested, the Reuters news agency reported, and some reported that Mexican authorities used force in breaking up the procession.
The caravan of as many as 800 people included citizens of a number of Central American countries as well as a growing contingent of Haitians who in recent weeks have been fleeing their country’s natural disasters and political instability.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has pushed to keep undocumented migrants in the country’s south, to make it easier to repatriate or process them, but has also pressed the Biden administration for aid in finding the migrants work and other support.
The Mexican president said last week that the current strategy of containing migrants in the south was unsustainable.