What we know about the migrant caravan waiting at the Texas-Mexico border

(Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras, Mexico – The Texas Tribune) «The roughly 1,600 migrants, who are mostly Honduran, are being housed in a former warehouse in Piedras Negras — and being guarded by Mexican law enforcement — while they wait to be let into the U.S. But processing is going slow.

For the sixth-straight day since arriving at the Texas-Mexico border, roughly 1,600 Central American migrants intent on seeking asylum in the U.S. are playing a frustrating waiting game in Mexico.

The migrants, who are mostly Honduran, are being housed in a former warehouse in Piedras Negras — and being guarded by Mexican law enforcement — while they wait to be let into the U.S.

But U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers are only able to process about 20 of the migrants a day, CNN reported, meaning progress is exceedingly slow, and tensions are high. Only a limited number of the migrants who have been given humanitarian visas by the Mexican government can leave the make-shift shelter; some others have asked to be returned to their home countries, the AP reported…

Moises Santos Canales, 17, of La Ceiba Antlantida, Honduras, has been detained at the migrant shelter in Piedras Negras for a week. “We are not delinquents,» he said. «When we go out to buy food, they escort us with police. We don’t have anything. I just want to work in the U.S. and send money to my grandmother in Honduras.”

The latest caravan has caught the attention of President Donald Trump. He referenced the group during Tuesday’s State of the Union address as he explained why he continues to push Congress to fund his long-promised border barrier.

His administration has deployed 250 active-duty military personnel to Eagle Pass to assist in border-security operations.»

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Photographs by Miguel Gutierrez/The Texas Tribune

US Democrats call for ‘strategic investments’ while touring border

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(Mexico/US Border – The Hill) «Democrats made the trip as lawmakers race against the clock to finish negotiations over border security funding ahead of a Feb. 15 deadline to avert another partial government shutdown.

Lawmakers are also seeking to bolster their argument that President Trump would not be justified in declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, something he has floated doing if lawmakers don’t come up with money to fund a border wall.

«Despite the President’s demagoguery over immigration, there is not a national emergency or a security crisis at the border that demands a wall,» Hoyer said in a statement Thursday in advance of the trip to the border.

Lawmakers were haggling this week over figures well below Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall on the Mexican border. Trump acknowledged those negotiations in a tweet Saturday afternoon while asserting that «Democrats just don’t seem to want Border Security.»

«If you believe news reports, they are not offering much for the Wall. They look to be making this a campaign issue. The Wall will get built one way or the other!» he wrote.»

la-1543717601-7btdqur0ep-snap-image — (Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)

(MEXICO CITY, The Washington Post) — «A leftist leader vowing to launch a “profound and radical” transformation of Mexico and improve the lives of the poor was sworn in as president on Saturday, opening an uncertain era in a country with deep economic and security ties with the United States.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 65, known by his initials AMLO, took office as potentially the most powerful Mexican president in decades. Not only did he win 53 percent of the vote in a three-way race, but his party cinched a majority in both houses of Congress and gained control of numerous state legislatures.

“Today, we begin a change of our political regime,” López Obrador said in an address to the nation, after donning the green, white and red presidential sash in Congress. “Starting from now, we will carry out a peaceful, steady political transformation. But it will also be profound and radical, because it will end the corruption and impunity that impede Mexico’s rebirth.”

The election of a leftist “is a historic, very important change for Mexico, and it’s very healthy in a country with the grotesque inequalities that we have,” said Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez, a prominent political scientist who teaches at the Tecnologico de Monterrey University.

Yet, he and other Mexicans are unsure whether López Obrador will govern as a practical-minded centrist — as he did as mayor of Mexico City from 2000 to 2005 — or an autocratic populist.»