Thousands of migrants attempt to make the dangerous journey from Mexico to the US – this is where it starts

Published

10 months ago

June 20, 2024

admin

As the sun rises over the Usumacinta River between Guatemala and Mexico, the silence is broken by the sounds of people awaking after another night camping on the riverbanks.

Soon the ferrymen who pilot a flotilla of makeshift rafts constructed of planks strapped to very large inner tyre tubes, begin their never-ending trade of moving fruit and vegetables, construction equipment, crates of beer and liquor, motorcycles and bicycles, but above all – people.

This is where thousands of migrants heading to the United States begin what they hope to be the last leg of their often epic journeys to the northern border with the US.

1600 miles through Mexico is all that separates them from their dreams of a new life.

Amongst the migrants we come across is 14-year-old Edgar Fonseca Cepeda.

He is completely on his own; an unaccompanied minor migrant.

Edgar travelled from Venezuela to Colombia where his grandmother, who had been caring for him, died.

Now he is trying to get to his mother who is in Washington DC and has undertaken this journey on his own.

We arrange for him to speak to his mother Carolina on a video call.

It was heartbreaking to witness.

Both mum and son started crying, and his mum kept saying how sorry she was that he was having to do this journey alone.

The day before, Edgar had explained to her that he, along with another group of migrants, had been kidnapped by a gang – he was only released after handing over $75 scrambled together by fellow travellers.

“We decided to come here on foot, which is a risk, and well, before Tapachula, just before we got here, we had already walked about six kilometres, we were stopped by a few bikers,” he explained to me.

“That’s when they told us not to cry, not to scream because nothing was going to happen to us, we thought that we were going to be surrounded by immigration, but no, they took us to a chicken coop…”

The group, including Edgar, say they were held for eight to 10 hours.

We’ve heard exactly the same testimony from a number of migrants we’ve spoken to in the last few days.

“The truth is, it was horrible that chicken coop, people holding guns, I’m not used to seeing things like that, it was really scary,” Edgar added.

We spoke to his mum Carolina, and she asked us to take him to the authorities, saying it was too dangerous for him to continue alone.

Edgar says he hasn’t seen his mother for six or seven months.

“It’s really very, very hard, I miss her so much, that’s why I’ve done all of this.”

Edgar bade an emotional goodbye to his new travelling family, the strangers who helped look after him on the journey.

He is safe now but when he will see his mother again nobody can say.

Constant rule changes

I’ve been here many times to report over many years and I am never less than amazed at the number of people who attempt this journey, and the sheer number of small children.

But this time I’ve noticed some things have changed.

Whereas a few years ago the migrants were almost entirely from Southern and Central America, now they’re from all over the world.

On this trip we have met young men and women from China, Egypt, Jordan, Somalia, Mauritania, Kazakhstan, Haiti, and Gambia, to name a few.

Another major change seems to be the attitude of the Mexican authorities.

In the past, the passage of the migrants north, while not easy, wasn’t noticeably hindered by the Mexicans.

Now though, with the issue of migration on its southern border a political hot potato in a United States election year, the Mexican authorities have got the message from the United States that thousands of migrants on the border fence is not a good look.

What we have witnessed is a system that doesn’t actually stop the migrants moving north, but makes it bureaucratic, confusing and often contradictory enough that the migrants don’t know what to do.

The US has a problem with the numbers, so people travelling through Mexico are shifted from one location to another and left, and then shifted again – never really making any progress.

Legally, migrants and asylum seekers cannot be stopped, but they can be asked to follow rules (or have their paperwork torn up), and if the rules keep changing, there is nothing they can do about.

After crossing the Usumacinta River from Guatemala, the migrants rest in the city of Hidalgo, before forming into groups known as “caravans” to begin their journey north.

They travel together for safety from gangs and criminals who prey on the migrants.

We joined a pop-up caravan shortly before dawn; they move at that time to take advantage of the cooler temperatures.

This caravan is led by a young Brazilian man named Davyde who is with his wife and sister-in-law.

“Brazil is not good, I can’t make enough money to pay the rent, America would be great,” he told me when I wondered why he’d made the journey from Brazil.

As we walk with the group of 200 plus people, the sun rises and the temperature soars.

Whole families, very young and old, travel along the sides of busy motorways, heading north – always north.

Walking with the group, we meet Mayra Ferrerr from Acarigua in Venezuela.

The 40-year-old is travelling with her two sons and some fellow Venezuelans.

They’ve all become friends along the way. Mayra has breast cancer, and she’s trying to get to her family in the US.

She’s prepared to risk everything.

“We left Venezuela because there is no education, because there is no medicine, because I am an oncology patient and I cannot get treatment in the public health system for breast cancer,” she told me.

“And well, I needed to go somewhere where I can be checked and continue treatment.”

Mayra explained that she’s doing chemotherapy in the form of pills, but that she stopped taking them so that she wasn’t too weak on this journey.

She says it’s tough, but that she and her family and friends plan to keep going.

“Well, it is hard because unfortunately in many towns we have crossed, they take advantage of our situation, our need to keep moving forward, and the costs, be it water or bread, they make it more expensive for us.”

Most of the migrants are carrying tents, an absolute necessity for crossing the Darien Gap – a notorious jungle crossing on the migrant route, which lies between Colombia and Panama.

Mayra says the tents are worth holding on to.

“We have kept our tents because we have nowhere to stay, and we have to set up the tent and camp anywhere, so that we can keep moving forward.”

After a few hours of walking the migrants approach an immigration checkpoint where they are met by Mexican immigration officers.

We keep filming as they are told they will be taken north to the first major city in southern Mexico called Tapachula.

The immigration officials give the migrants water and assure them that they are allowed to continue their journey north, that the involvement of immigration is simply to offer them a ride to Tapachula and a free meal.

The migrants are sceptical, but over and over they are assured that once they are in Tapachula they can get paperwork done and continue.

The ones who agree have their identity cards and passports logged and checked, and then they’re loaded onto minibuses.

Mayra, her two sons, and her friends all agree to go in the migration minibus to Tapachula.

This doesn’t mean however that a journey further north is going to happen anytime soon.

At another immigration checkpoint on the outskirts of Tapachula, crowds surge around immigration staff, waving their papers.

All they’re trying to do is get on a bus north, but the Mexican authorities assumed assistance has dried up.

America does not want them in the north and nor it seems does Mexico, so they’re in a limbo.

At multiple checkpoints we saw what is developing into a multinational mess.

Groups of young Chinese men and women take shade amongst Jordanians, Egyptians, Somalis, Gambians, even two friends from Kazakhstan.

The list of nationalities is remarkable, not least because of the distances they’ve travelled.

Said is a 28-year-old Afghan who worked for a British NGO until the Taliban arrived in Kabul in August 2021.

He says he got his paperwork to leave from Kabul Airport at the time, but abandoned his plans after a suicide bomb went off at the evacuation point.

Said’s father and two uncles were killed by the Taliban, and he sees no safe future for his family there.

Indeed, he asked us not to show his face or use his full name because it would be dangerous for family members still in Afghanistan.

Said is travelling with his wife, three young children, and his 74-year-old grandfather who has stage one Alzheimer’s.

Said told me that other migrants have nicknamed his grandad the “warrior” for undertaking such an intense physical journey in his older years.

The family has been on the move for two years.

“I realised I am on my own, I have to do it for myself, for my family, I’ve realised nobody is going to help me,” he told me.

Said knows the political mood in the United States ahead of the presidential elections in November will be a factor in their chances of making it.

“I believe in God, I know I am in Mexico and 90% of the people are arriving there, actually, before the election, I need to get there before the election because I don’t know the next president, what he will do and what he is thinking about refugees like us,” he said.

‘They are the law… we are nobody’

All these migrants are in a sort of vortex – not being stopped from travelling north but not being allowed to either.

The day after meeting Mayra and her group of family and friends heading north, we travelled again south to the river.

On our way back we recognised some of Mayra’s group on the side of the road, exactly where they originally started.

We were confused, so we pulled over to talk to them.

They explained they were taken north to Tapachula, given some food, waited about an hour not knowing what was happening, then put back on the minibus and sent straight back to the riverside where they started.

They told us they were given additional paperwork, and then, as they put it “thrown out on the street”.

I asked one of them, Christian Heredia, if the authorities acknowledged that taking them all the way back doesn’t help.

“They’re delaying us, yes, they know, of course, but as I was saying, they are the law here, here we are nobody, so they do as they please with the migrants. Right? That’s the truth,” he replied.

Christian says many of the migrants we had seen loaded into the minibuses and promised a ride to Tapachula the previous day had been pushed back to the river just like them.

They suspect the authorities only promised to look after them because of our presence, otherwise they believe the migration officials probably would’ve just driven them straight back down to the river.

Local buses don’t usually pick up migrants because they’re not allowed to, but standing on the side of the road with fresh papers, Christian and the group were able to flag down a minibus to take them back to Tapachula.

They reunited with Mayra and her boys in the main square where migrants from all over the world gather.

They, like everyone there, refuse to accept defeat. But their mammoth journeys are far from over.

Indeed, their difficulties continue.

The last we heard from Mayra and her friends they’d been robbed at gunpoint in a bus taking them further north.

World

How Trump changed his mind on tariffs

Published

10 hours ago

April 10, 2025

admin

“Liberation Day” just gave way to Capitulation Day.

US President Donald Trump pulled back on Wednesday on a series of harsh tariffs targeting friends and foes alike in an audacious bid to remake the global economic order.

Mr Trump’s early afternoon announcement followed a harrowing week in which Republican lawmakers and confidants privately warned him that the tariffs could wreck the economy.

His own aides had quietly raised alarms about the financial markets before he suspended a tariff regime that he had unveiled with a flourish just one week earlier in a Rose Garden ceremony.

Tariffs latest: Beijing takes fight to Trump

The stock market rose immediately after the about-face, ending days of losses that have forced older Americans who’ve been sinking their savings into 401(k)s to rethink their retirement plans.

Ahead of Mr Trump’s announcement, some of his advisers had been in a near panic about the bond markets, a senior administration official told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.

Interest rates on 10-year Treasury bonds had been rising, contrary to what normally happens when stock prices fall and investors seek safety in treasuries.

The unusual dynamic meant that at the same time the tariffs could push up prices, people would be paying more to buy homes or pay off credit card debt because of higher interest rates. Businesses looking to expand would pay more for new loans.

Two of Mr Trump’s most senior advisers, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, presented a united front on Wednesday, urging him to suspend the tariffs in light of the bond market, the administration official said.

In a social media post, Mr Trump announced a 90-day pause that he said he’ll use to negotiate deals with dozens of countries that have expressed openness to revising trade terms that he contends exploit American businesses and workers.

One exception is China. Mr Trump upped the tariff on the country’s biggest geopolitical rival to 125%, part of a tit-for-tat escalation in an evolving trade war.

Mr Trump reversed course one week after he appeared in the Rose Garden and unveiled his plan to bring jobs back to the United States. Displaying a chart showing the new, elevated tariffs that countries would face, Mr Trump proclaimed: “My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day.”

It proved short-lived. Markets plunged in anticipation of heightened trade wars, wiping out trillions of dollars in wealth.

Democrats seized on the issue, looking to undercut a source of Mr Trump’s popular appeal: the view that he can be trusted to steer the nation’s economy.

“Donald Trump’s market crash has vaporised a whopping $104,000 from the average retirement account,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said on Wednesday on the Senate floor, hours before the president’s reversal.

The episode laid bare the rifts within Mr Trump’s team of senior advisers as the White House struggled to offer a clear, consistent argument about the duration of the tariffs.

While Mr Bessent seemed open to negotiations, Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser, appeared to take a more hard-line posture.

Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla chief executive who has been advising Mr Trump on the government workforce, called Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks,” while Mr Navarro described Mr Musk as someone who is merely “a car assembler, in many cases”.

But the weeklong drama also underscored the peril of a policymaking process that is often tied to the wishes and vagaries of one man: Donald Trump.

Asked about the dust-up between Mr Musk and Mr Navarro, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a golf partner of Mr Trump’s, said: “I don’t think it matters. The only one who matters is Trump.”

Markets tend to favour predictability, as do business leaders deciding where to build new plants. When Mr Trump sets a course, however, there are bound to be detours.

A friend of his who spoke to him in recent days said Mr Trump gave no sign he was about to “back down quickly on this stuff”.

Mr Trump believes other countries trade unfairly and sees tariffs as a tool to make the United States more competitive, the person said.

“He’s very confident it’s going to work for him,” the person added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

👉 Follow Trump 100 on your podcast app 👈

And yet in the run-up to Wednesday’s announcement, Mr Trump and his aides were also hearing from GOP lawmakers and outside allies urging an alternative path.

One was Larry Kudlow, who hosts a show on Fox Business Network and was a senior economic adviser in Mr Trump’s first term.

Mr Kudlow told NBC News that he has had “ongoing” talks with friends in the West Wing about the need to negotiate with other countries before the United States slaps them with tariffs that stand in perpetuity.

Describing Mr Trump’s move Wednesday as “fabulous,” Mr Kudlow added: “Dealmaking is the best thing to do. In the last 48 hours, Trump has gone from non-negotiating to negotiating.

“It’s very clear that Bessent is now the point man on trade. Very clear.”

Anxious GOP lawmakers also weighed in.

Mr Graham said he spoke to Mr Trump at length on Tuesday night and told him he had been hearing from car manufacturers who are worried about how the tariffs would affect their business. BMW operates a plant in Mr Graham’s home state and is one of the companies he said he had spoken to.

Senator John Kennedy, a Republican lawmaker who was also in touch with the administration, said on Tuesday that he planned to have lunch with Mr Bessent. On Wednesday, he told NBC News he was also talking to the White House.

Mr Kennedy likened Mr Trump to the “pit bull who caught the car”. Now, he said, the question becomes: “What are you going to do with the car?”

After more market losses this week, and with pressure mounting from Republicans on Capitol Hill, Mr Trump began having second thoughts.

In his first term, he often viewed the ups and downs of the stock market as a kind of report card on his presidency, celebrating its rise. The downturn had got his attention.

“People were getting a little queasy,” he acknowledged Wednesday on an event with NASCAR racing champions.

“Over the last few days” he began to more seriously consider pausing the additional tariffs, he told reporters later in the day in an Oval Office appearance.

One prospect that intrigued him was personally negotiating new trade deals with the countries looking to get out from under the tariffs, the senior administration official said.

He’d made up his mind. Sitting with Mr Bessent and Mr Lutnick, he crafted the note announcing the 90-day postponement and ending, for the time being, the biggest economic crisis of his young presidency.

“We wrote it from our hearts, right?” Mr Trump said. “It was written as something that I think was very positive for the world and for us, and we don’t want to hurt countries that don’t need to be hurt, and they all want to negotiate.”

The day closed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up nearly 8%, erasing some – but not all – of the “post-Liberation Day” losses.

Messy as it all may have seemed, his administration insisted that all is unfolding as planned.

“You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American president in history,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on Wednesday afternoon.

World

Andrew Tate ‘pointed gun at woman’s face’, court documents claim

Published

10 hours ago

April 10, 2025

admin

Andrew Tate 'pointed gun at woman's face', court documents claim

Andrew Tate pointed a gun at a woman’s face and told her to do as he said, according to court documents seen by Sky News.

Warning: This article contains graphic details of alleged sexual abuse

The controversial social media influencer allegedly told her: “I’m a boss, you’re going to do as I say or there’ll be hell to pay.”

The woman, who worked for Tate on his online webcam business, alleges he threatened her daily.

She is one of four women who have launched a civil claim against Tate in the UK, with allegations including rape, assault and coercive control.

A spokesperson for Tate said he “categorically denies” the allegations.

In a statement, the spokesperson said: “Mr Tate categorically denies these unproven and untested allegations.

“Specifically, he denies ever threatening anyone with a firearm, engaging in non-consensual acts or subjecting any individual to physical or psychological harm.

“These are civil claims, brought years after the alleged events and following a CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) decision not to pursue criminal charges.

“It is deeply troubling that such graphic and one-sided accounts are being publicised before any judicial assessment has taken place.

“This type of reporting undermines the presumption of innocence and shapes public perception in a way that is fundamentally unjust.

“We have seen other high-profile cases where similarly serious allegations collapsed under scrutiny – but only after irreparable reputational harm had already been done.

“Mr Tate will defend himself vigorously and remains confident the truth will prevail.”

The civil action was launched in the High Court in London last week, and a preliminary hearing is to be held next week.

In the court documents, he describes the allegations as “a pack of lies”, and in a detailed response said: “There may have been a toy gun in the flat.”

The woman worked for Tate in Luton in 2015 and is claiming damages for “assault, battery and/or intentional infliction of harm, including rape”.

Tate, 37, and his brother Tristan, 35, are facing a trial in Romania, where they have been living for the past two years, on charges of sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

The Romanian authorities have agreed that after the completion of their own criminal justice process, the brothers can be extradited to the UK on allegations of rape and human trafficking.

The brothers, who have joint UK and US citizenship, are also under criminal investigation in Florida, where they visited recently after a Romanian judge lifted a travel ban on them.

They are currently in Dubai, but must return to Romania.

The four women claim Tate strangled them during sex, and two developed red spots from burst capillaries in their eyes from asphyxia.

In an interview with Sky News last year, one of the claimants said she had consensual sex with Tate during a normal relationship with him, but once lost consciousness when he strangled her.

She said: “We were having sex and he put his hands round my throat and strangled me until I lost consciousness. And when I came round he was still having sex with me, still on top of me.

“The next day, all the white had gone completely red in one of my eyes. I looked it up afterwards and it was just lack of oxygen to your brain where your blood vessels start bursting to try and get more oxygen into your brain. That was quite scary.”

She said she didn’t call police because she was young, inexperienced and didn’t realise how dangerous the encounter had been.

World

Inside a NATO base in Poland – as residents bordering Russia say ‘scare tactic’ is needed

Published

16 hours ago

April 10, 2025

admin

Inside a NATO base in Poland - as residents bordering Russia say 'scare tactic' is needed

Along the thin strip of beach and woodland known as the Vistula Spit which marks the northernmost demarcation between Poland and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, there is not much in the way of a border.

Just some torn wire fencing and a few rotten posts which seem to stagger drunkenly into the shallows of the Baltic Sea.

Beneath a sign barring entry, we find a couple of empty bottles of Russian cognac and vodka.

It doesn’t feel like the edge of NATO territory.

“I don’t see much protection. It’s not good,” says Krzysztof from Katowice, who has come to inspect the border himself.

“We have to have some kind of scare tactic, something to show that we are trying to strengthen our army,” says Grzegorz, who lives nearby.

“At the same time I think I would not base the defence of our country solely on our army. I am convinced that Europe or America, if anything were to happen, will help us 100%.”

Poland is investing massively in its defence, with military spending set to hit 4.7% of GDP in 2025, more than any other NATO country.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said he will introduce voluntary military training for men of any age, and women too should they wish, so the army has a competent reserve force in the event of war.

He is investing $2.5bn in stronger border fortifications between Russia and Belarus, a project called East Shield which will include anti-tank obstacles, bunkers and potentially minefields too.

Along with its Baltic neighbours, Poland is withdrawing from the Ottawa convention against the use of land mines. It hasn’t committed to using them, but it wants to have that option.

We’ve been granted access to one of the cornerstones of Polish, and European defence, which is a couple of hours drive from the Vistula spit at the Redowicze military base.

Aegis Ashore Poland, together with its sister site in Romania, are the land-based arms of NATO’s missile defence shield over Europe, which is run by the US navy.

They are symbols of the US commitment to NATO and to the protection of Europe.

And despite changes at the top of the Pentagon it is “business as usual”, says Captain Michael Dwan who oversees air and missile defence within the US Sixth Fleet.

“Our mission to work with NATO forces has been unchanged. And so our commitment from the United States perspective and what capability we bring to ballistic missile defence and the defence of NATO is championed here in Poland.”

As far as Russia is concerned, NATO’s two missile defence bases in Romania and Poland represent a NATO threat on their doorstep and are therefore a “priority target for potential neutralisation”, per Russia’s foreign ministry.

NATO says the installations are purely defensive and their SM-3 interceptor missiles are not armed and are not intended to carry warheads. Russia counters they could easily be adapted to threaten Russia.

Not the case, Captain Dwan says.

“It’s not a matter of moving offensive weapons here into the facility, the hardware and the infrastructure is simply not installed.

“It would take months or years to change the mission of this site and a significant amount of money and capability and design.”

With so much marked “secret” on the site, it seems amazing to be granted the access.

But for NATO, transparency is part of deterrence. They want potential adversaries to know how sophisticated their radar and interception systems are.

They know that if they carried warheads on site, that would make them a target so they don’t.

Deterrence also depends on whether potential adversaries believe in the US’s commitment to NATO and to Europe’s defence.

On an operational level, as far as the troops are concerned, that commitment may still be iron-clad.

But as far as its commander-in-chief goes, there is still – as with so much around Donald Trump’s presidency – a great deal of uncertainty.

In the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon President Trump suggested he might bundle a potential US troop drawdown in Europe together with the issue of EU trade and tariffs.

“Nice to wrap it up in one package,” he said, “it’s nice and clean”.

Probably not the way Europe sees it, not with a resurgent Russia on their doorstep, economic tailwinds breeding animosity and the notion of Pax Americana crumbling at their feet.