Mexico arrested scores of Central American migrants after hundreds of them forced their way through a Mexican police blockade and headed for the U.S. but were met with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Around 500 men, women and children, part of a caravan of roughly 5,000 mainly Hondurans who have been trekking toward the U.S. for weeks, scrambled over a rusted metal fence and surged into a concrete riverbed toward San Diego on Sunday.
The group was stopped by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire and U.S. Border Patrol agents firing tear gas and rubber bullets. At least one man was wounded. Chief Patrol Agent Rodney Scott told CNN that “numerous” migrants — mainly men — had made it across, however, and 42 of them were arrested.
Mexico’s National Institute of Migration Commissioner Gerardo Garcia confirmed the 98 arrests on his country’s side, saying there were “instigators” in the migrant caravan pushing people to illegally cross the border.
President Donald Trump defended the use of tear gas by U.S. border patrol. “They had to use (it) because they were being rushed by some very tough people and they used tear gas and here’s the bottom line: nobody’s coming into our country unless they come in legally,” Mr. Trump told reporters.
Back to camp
Most of the migrants stumbled back into camp in the northwestern Mexican city of Tijuana, dirty, scared and with ripped clothes.
The San Ysidro border post across from Tijuana — the busiest crossing on the U.S.-Mexico border —was closed to traffic and pedestrians for several hours following the incident.