Thousands join Christmas Eve migrant caravan – the biggest in more than a year

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The biggest migrant caravan for 18 months set off for the US from Mexico on Christmas Eve as border crossing records continue to tumble.

Around 10,000 people led by Mexican activist Luis Rey Garcia Villagran left the southern Mexican border town of Tapachula for the long march north as more of those already at the US border finished their journey this evening.

President Joe Biden has hauled Secretary of State Anthony Blinken away from the crisis in the Middle East for a summit with Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Wednesday, after US authorities recorded more than 242,000 migrants crossing in November alone.

Monday saw a one-day record high of 12,600 and more were risking their lives in the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass in Texas as darkness fell on Christmas Eve.

‘We are the poorest of the poorest of those at the peak of need, those of us who do not have money to pay for visas or people smugglers,’ said Villagran as the latest caravan set off.

Biden spoke with his Mexican counterpart on Thursday ahead of a summit designed to ‘manage the unprecedented migratory flows in the western hemisphere’.

It came after US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had to suspend cross-border rail traffic in the Texas cities of Eagle Pass and El Paso as migrants were riding atop freight trains.

‘The two leaders agreed that additional enforcement actions are urgently needed to keep ports of entry can be reopened across our shared border,’ said White House spokesman John Kirby.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and US Homeland Security adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall will also be in the party heading south to discuss ‘further actions that can be taken together to address current border challenges’.

On Friday, López Obrador said he would tell his visitors to ease sanctions on left-wing governments in Cuba and Venezuela and increase aid to Latin America to improve conditions in the migrants home countries.

‘That is what we are going to discuss, it is not just contention,’ he said after speaking to Biden.

But he will come under pressure to resume deportations from Mexico which were halted this month after funds ran out.

Mexico’s Border Crisis: The Country Can’t Take More Migrants