New migrant caravan forms in Mexico, heads for U.S. border

A new caravan of around 1,000 Central American and Haitian migrants formed in southern Mexico Friday and began walking toward the U.S. border, Reuters reports.

Several migrants told reporters they are setting out for the U.S. only because Mexican authorities failed to present many of them with the refugee or humanitarian visas they have been requesting. Without these visas, they cannot work in Mexico.

This summer, a similar caravan of 15,000 migrants crossed the U.S. border near McAllen, Texas. Of those 15,000, several thousand have been dispersed throughout the United States to await court dates.

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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of Florida announced last month that he is suing the Biden administration over this policy, which the lawsuit claims will harm Florida's "quasi-sovereign interests" and cost the state millions of dollars. DeSantis also pointed out that people crossing the border illegally are not required to be vaccinated against or even screened for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to make use of Title 42, a policy implemented by the Trump administration at the beginning of the pandemic that makes it easier to deport migrants for public health purposes. Title 42 was used to justify the deportation of thousands of the migrants who arrived in McAllen. Without this policy, experts believe even more caravans would have formed and the rate of migration would have grown beyond the record numbers seen this summer.

The journey to the U.S. border from the town of Tapachula, the caravan's starting point in the Mexican state of Chiapas, is over 1,000 miles. Caravan leaders told Reuters they plan to join up with another caravan in the town of Mapastepec and head north from there.