A US-bound caravan of thousands of mostly Honduran migrants whom President Donald Trump has declared unwelcome have crowded into the Mexican border city of Tapachula, setting up impromptu camps in public spaces under a heavy rain.
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Keeping together for strength and safety in numbers, some huddled under a metal roof in the city's main plaza on Sunday night. Others lay exhausted in the open air, with only thin sheets of plastic to protect them from ground soggy from an intense evening shower. Some didn't even have a bit of plastic yet.
The group's advance has drawn strong criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, who lashed out again on Sunday at the Democratic Party over what he apparently sees as a winning issue for Republicans a little over two weeks ahead of midterm elections.
After blaming the Democrats for "weak laws" on immigration a few days earlier, Trump said via Twitter: "The Caravans are a disgrace to the Democrat party. Change the immigration laws NOW!"
In another tweet, he said the migrants would not be allowed into the United States.
Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador suggested that the United States, Canada and Mexico work out a joint plan for funding development in the poor areas of Central America and southern Mexico.
"In this way we confront the phenomenon of migration, because he who leaves his town does not leave for pleasure but out of necessity," said Lopez Obrador, who takes office December 1.
The migrant caravan, which started out more than a week ago with less than 200 participants, has drawn additional people along the way and it swelled to an estimated 5000 on Sunday after many migrants found ways to cross from Guatemala into southern Mexico as police blocked the official crossing point.
Later in the day, authorities in Guatemala said another group of about 1000 migrants had entered that country from Honduras.
In interviews along the journey, migrants have said they are fleeing widespread violence, poverty and corruption in Honduras. The caravan is unlike previous mass migrations for its unprecedented large numbers and because it largely began spontaneously through word of mouth.
Migrants received help Sunday from sympathetic Mexicans who offered food, water and clothing. Hundreds of locals driving pickups, vans and cargo trucks stopped to let them clamber aboard.
Civil defence officials for Mexico's southern state of Chiapas said they had offered to take the migrants by bus to a shelter set up by immigration officials about 7 kilometres outside Tapachula, but the migrants refused, fearing that once they boarded the buses they would be deported.
Australian Associated Press