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Who is behind the migrant caravan? Ignore the conspiracy theories, activists say

Rick Jervis
USA TODAY
Migrants take part in a new caravan, Monday, heading to the US with Honduran and Guatemalan national flags in Quezaltepeque, Chiquimula, Guatemala.

Poverty, crime and a questionable TV newscast may all have played a role in launching the massive migrant caravan traveling from Honduras toward the U.S.-Mexico border. 

As of Tuesday, no single group or person had taken credit for organizing the mass movement of people that numbered more than 7,000. 

“There’s no one in charge of this thing,” Alex Mensing, an organizer for Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an immigration rights group that organized a similar, smaller caravan in April, told USA TODAY. “It’s a mass exodus.”

The caravan has become a hot political issue with the U.S. midterm elections just two weeks away. President Donald Trump has vowed to send U.S. troops to meet the migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and accused Democrats and left-leaning groups of financially-backing the caravan.  

"The crisis on our border right now as we speak is the sole result of Democrat laws and activist, Democrat judges,” Trump told thousands of supporters Monday during a campaign speech at the Houston Toyota Center.

Many of the migrants are fleeing economic hardship and violence in their home country, said Gisell Vasquez, an economist with FOSDEH, a Tegucigalpa-based think tank.

Around 8.8 million Hondurans – or 68 percent of the country – live in poverty, while 80 percent of the workforce get paid below the official minimum wage, she said. The bleak economic outlook, along with threats of violence from gangs and government corruption, motivate thousands of people to leave Honduras for the U.S. each year, Vasquez said.

But such a massive gathering of migrants is rare, she said.

“This phenomenon has not happened before,” Vasquez said.

Honduran authorities point to Bartolo Fuentes, a former Honduran opposition lawmaker and longtime migrant advocate, as the caravan's ringleader. But in a series of media interviews, Fuentes denied organizing the march and said he joined only after it had formed to lend support. 

The caravan started on Oct. 12, with around 120 migrants gathered in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, near the Guatemala border, readying for a long trek to the U.S., Fuentes told UNE TV in Honduras. Migrants have increasingly left their native countries in larger groups as a defense from criminal gangs that prey on them during the journey through Central America and Mexico.

HCH, Hondura's most-watched cable news channel, interviewed some of the migrants on the first day of the caravan and alluded that the trip was being financed by prominent groups that had hired buses to ferry the migrants north -- none of which was true, Fuentes told UNE TV.

Following the broadcast, the group quickly swelled to 600 people overnight and grew to 3,000 by the time it reached Guatemala, Fuentes said. (He was arrested last week in Guatemala and returned to Honduras.)

"The people were waiting for an opportunity," Fuentes told UNE TV. "People don't have work here. They don't have opportunity."

On Tuesday, tired, wet and weary caravan members stopped to rest in a makeshift encampment in Huixtla, Mexico. They were still around 700 miles away from Mexico City and 1,080 miles from the nearest U.S. border city of McAllen, Texas. 

Jimenez Flores, a truck driver, said he couldn’t return to Honduras because a gang attacked his brother and threatened him with death after he called police about four months ago.

“I spent four months hidden. I couldn’t even go into the street. I can’t go back,” he told The Associated Press.

Rodrigo Abeja, a Pueblo Sin Fronteras activist traveling with the migrants, said there were concerns about timing the caravan’s arrival to the U.S. border at about the same time as the midterm elections. But he still felt a duty to help the migrants. 

“It’s more important to accompany the caravan ... than worry about white voters, sitting in front of their TV’s drinking beer,” he told USA Today.

He pointed to Honduras' crushing poverty and gang violence as the main motivators for the caravan. 

“The organizer of this caravan is number one hunger, two death,” he said.

Contributing: David Agren of USA TODAY Network and The Associated Press.

Follow Jervis on Twitter: @MrRJervis.

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