Melissa Guzmán, 33, center, from Copán in Honduras, waiting in line for food with other migrants outside a recently arranged shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, on MONDAYMauricio Lima for The OKSH360NEWS
TIJUANA, Mexico — After more than a month on the move, a caravan of migrants from Central America has come to a halt just a few yards from the border wall that divides Mexico and the United States.The metal barrier looms near the sports center where Tijuana’s city government has set up a shelter for the migrants, whose numbers are swelling as buses arrive almost daily. On the other side — beyond floodlights, motion sensors, cameras and a second fence — lies their goal: the United States.But it is dawning on many of them that the shelter could be their home for months if they decide to seek legal entry into the United States.“We have to wait — for how long?” asked Lenin Herrera Batres, 20, who joined the caravan with his wife and their 2-year-old son to escape threats after the couple witnessed a murder in theHonduran city of San Pedro Sula.“We don’t have the money to stay here for one month, two months,” he said, his voice trailing off.
Less than a week old, the shelter has assumed the squalor of an overwhelmed refugee camp, and the rhythms of enforced idleness have taken hold. One group spends hours watching karaoke singers at an end of the basketball courts there, while men bet on cards at the other. Children dart around a playground. Women fold donated blankets in the reflexive gestures of tidying up at home, now just a tiny patch under a large tent.
City officials, who fear that as many as 10,000 migrants from this caravan and two more behind it may ultimately alight in Tijuana in the coming weeks, are scrambling to provide for them.“I sleep only three hours a night, and when I close my eyes I count migrants, not sheep,” said César Palencia Chávez, the director of migrant services for Tijuana. “No city can be prepared for the arrival of 5,000 people over three to four days. We are doing what’s humanely possible.”
Street vendors offered products to drivers as they lined up to cross from Tijuana, Mexico, into San Diego across the border.Mauricio Lima for The New York
