The migrants spent Christmas night sleeping on scraps of cardboard or plastic, stretched out under awnings, tents or on the bare ground, according to the AP.
“I was used to my Christmas dinner with the family, not spending it in the street as we did yesterday,” Eduviges Arias, a migrant from Venezuela, told the news agency.
The caravan’s journey comes as Blinken, López Obrador, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and White House homeland security advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall meet in Mexico City on Wednesday to discuss “unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere and identify ways Mexico and the United States will address border security challenges,” according to a State Department statement.
Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered a record number of undocumented migrants crossing the border. At the same time, according to three Homeland Security officials, U.S. border facilities had a record number of migrants in custody.
Last Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., sent a letter to President Joe Biden, blaming him for the border crisis and urging him to act “to stem the record tide of illegal immigration.”
García Villagrán told the AP that the meeting between the U.S. and Mexican officials “will be between fools and fools, who want to use women and children as trading pieces.”
“We are not trading pieces for any politician,” he said.