Here are two stories that cover current conditions:
From the Chicago Tribune:
Deal with Mexico would make asylum seekers wait outside U.S. border
The Trump administration has won the support of Mexico's incoming government for a plan to remake U.S. border policy by requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims move through U.S. courts, according to Mexican officials and senior members of president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador's transition team.
The agreement would break with long-standing asylum rules and place a formidable new barrier in the path of Central American migrants attempting to reach the United States and escape poverty and violence. By reaching the accord, the Trump administration has also overcome Mexico's historic reticence to deepen cooperation with the United States on an issue widely seen here as America's problem.
Good - these people were paid to come here. They are political pawns in someone elses game. To make this point, here is this from The Washington Post:
For Central Americans, children open a path to the U.S. — and bring a discount
CHANMAGUA, Guatemala — To mark attendance in Diana Melisa Contreras’s kindergarten classroom, students place tongue depressors into little white cups painted with their names.
There were 29 cups at the start of the school year. Then Contreras’s students and their parents began leaving their small village in the coffee-growing hills of southern Guatemala, joining the torrent of migration to the United States. With more families preparing to depart in the coming weeks, Contreras has been told her class will only have five students next term, and she will be transferred to teach at a different school.
And a bit of the story:
This is happening because Central Americans know they will have a better chance of avoiding deportation, at least temporarily, if they are processed along with children.
The economics of the journey reinforces the decision to bring a child: Smugglers in Central America charge less than half the price if a minor is part of the cargo because less work is required of them.
A long and interesting article - no word about who is organizing the caravan or funding it but an interesting insight into the local operations.
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