Migrants’ advocates had accused the Trump administration of engaging in brinkmanship for political gain at the asylum seekers’ expense.
Most of the migrants, meanwhile, had adopted mind-sets of hardened patience.
“Really, nobody’s said anything,” said Arnaldo Rivera, 40, who fled his native Honduras with his wife and five children after the family was threatened by a gang. They were among about 200 migrants who were waiting outside the entrance to the border crossing on Sunday, eating donated food and using a nearby public bathroom.
The family had staked out a patch of the pedestrian plaza by spreading out a blanket and demarcating it with a few knapsacks containing their worldly belongings.
“It could be this afternoon, it could be tomorrow,” he said, shrugging. “God has the last word.”
Late Sunday, local, state and federal authorities tried to persuade the migrants to decamp from the pedestrian plaza and spend the night in migrant shelters. But in an act of communal defiance, the caravan’s participants elected to remain where they were. As the officials walked away, the migrants applauded and cheered.
“We’ve experienced a lot and this isn’t going to stop us,” said Shannel Smith, 29, who fled gang violence in Honduras and is one of about 35 transgender migrants in the caravan.
Ms. Smith was part of a delegation of about 50 migrants who were selected by the lawyers and caravan organizers to approach the American border entry on Sunday afternoon and test the authorities’ claim that they had no capacity to process asylum petitions.
Source : Nytimes
