Busloads of migrants from ‘caravan’ arrive at U.S.-Mexico border

A group of Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, arrive at the office of Mexico's National Institute of Migration to start the legal process and get temporary residence status for humanitarian reasons, in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

By Edgardo Garrido

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – Dozens of Central American migrants from about 600 traveling in a “caravan” through Mexico arrived at the border city of Tijuana late on Tuesday despite warnings it would be futile to try to cross to claim asylum in the United States.

By evening, two busloads of men, women and children arrived in Tijuana, a city that grazes southern California.

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered officials to repel them.

The arrivals spilled into the streets and gazed toward San Diego, visible at spots through a rusty barrier or across a pedestrian bridge, exhausted after their trek that began a month ago near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala.

Another four busloads were making their way north from Hermosillo, a city 432 miles south of the border, where the migrants had been stalled for days.

A group of Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, ask for money to get on a microbus to the office of Mexico's National Institute of Migration to start the legal process and get temporary residence status for humanitarian reasons, in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

A group of Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, ask for money to get on a microbus to the office of Mexico’s National Institute of Migration to start the legal process and get temporary residence status for humanitarian reasons, in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Many who fled their homes in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras because of what they described as lethal threats or political persecution have clung to the hope of receiving asylum in the United States. But their prospects dimmed after U.S. authorities released statements on Monday saying they would driven back.

Rodrigo Abeja, a coordinator from immigrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras that has been organizing similar caravans for several years, said the caravan planned to regroup before making any decisions.

“They will wait for all those seeking asylum to be together,” Abeja said.

A third group, resigned to staying in Mexico, awaited processing for year-long visas by immigration authorities in Hermosillo.

Traveling as a group for safety, their numbers were down from a peak of about 1,500 people, dwindling under the twin pressures of waiting for transportation and attacks by Trump, who began lashing out at the caravan on Twitter in early April.

After Trump’s comments, Mexican authorities stalled the caravan in a southern town and began handing out temporary visas that gave them legal status to travel to the border.

(Reporting by Edgardo Garrido; Additional reporting by Delphine Schrank in Mexico City; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

Florida teens travel to state capital demanding action on guns

Mourners attend a service for Carmen Marie Schentrup, one of the victims of the school shooting at St. Andrew Church Catholic Church in Coral Springs, Florida, U.S. February 20, 2018. REUTERS/Joe Skipper

By Katanga Johnson

PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – Busloads of Florida students headed on Tuesday to the state capital Tallahassee to call for a ban on assault rifles, pressing on with protests after a shooting rampage at a high school that killed 17 teens and educators.

Last week’s killing, the second-deadliest shooting at a public school in U.S. history, has inflamed a national debate about gun rights and prompted teens from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and across the United States to demand legislative action. The incident has galvanized advocates for stricter gun controls, including many survivors of the shooting.

A Washington Post/ABC News opinion poll released on Tuesday showed that 77 percent of Americans believe the Republican-controlled Congress is not doing enough to prevent mass shootings, with 62 percent saying President Donald Trump, also a Republican, has not done enough on that front.

Students who survived the shooting have promised they will push for action. Jaclyn Corin, a 17-year-old junior at the school in Parkland near Fort Lauderdale, said on Twitter that she had secured a meeting with Florida’s Republican Governor, Rick Scott, on the issue.

Scott spokeswoman Lauren Schenone confirmed the governor would be “meeting survivors later this week.”

Mourners attend a service for Carmen Marie Schentrup, one of the victims of the school shooting at St. Andrew Church Catholic Church in Coral Springs, Florida, U.S. February 20, 2018. REUTERS/Joe Skipp

Mourners attend a service for Carmen Marie Schentrup, one of the victims of the school shooting at St. Andrew Church Catholic Church in Coral Springs, Florida, U.S. February 20, 2018. REUTERS/Joe Skipper

Nikolas Cruz, 19, is accused of returning to the high school from which he had been expelled and opening fire with a semiautomatic AR-15 assault rifle on Feb. 14. He faces 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Students, many of whom have grown up in a world where they regularly train for the possibility of being targeted by a shooter on the loose, teachers and gun safety advocates were due to gather in Tallahassee on Wednesday to demand that state lawmakers enact a ban on the sale of assault weapons in Florida.

Gun ownership is protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and remains one of the nation’s more divisive issues. The Washington Post/ABC News poll found that fewer than seven in 10 Republicans support the idea of a ban on assault weapons, the reverse of Democrats, 71 percent of whom support it. A federal ban on assault weapons, in force for 10 years, expired in 2004.

The suspect, whose mother died in November, was investigated by authorities after videos surfaced on the social media platform Snapchat, showing him cutting himself, an assessment by Florida’s Department of Children and Families said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has acknowledged it failed to act on a tip that was called in last month and that warned that Cruz possessed a gun and the desire to kill.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Frances Kerry)