TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — Several hundred Central American migrants on Sunday pushed past a blockade of Mexican police standing guard near the international border crossing between Tijuana and California to pressure the U.S to hear their asylum claims.
The migrants carried hand-painted American and Honduran flags and chanted: "We are not criminals! We are international workers!"
More than 5,000 migrants have been camped in and around a sports complex in Tijuana after making their way through Mexico in recent weeks via caravan. Many hope to apply for asylum in the U.S., but agents at the San Ysidro entry point are processing fewer than 100 asylum petitions a day.
Some of the migrants who went forward Sunday called on each other to remain peaceful.
They appeared to easily pass through the Mexican police blockade without using violence.
A second line of Mexican police carrying plastic riot shields stood guard outside a Mexican customs and immigration plaza, where the migrants were headed.
That line of police installed tall steel panels behind them outside the Chaparral crossing on the Mexican side of the border, which completely blocked incoming traffic lanes to Mexico.
Irineo Mujica, who has accompanied the migrants for weeks as part of the aid group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said the aim of Sunday's march toward the U.S. border was to make the migrants' plight more visible to the governments of Mexico and the U.S.
"We can't have all these people here," Mujica told The Associated Press.
Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastlum on Friday declared a humanitarian crisis in his border city of 1.6 million, which he says is struggling to accommodate the crush of migrants.
