From Mexico, the Reality of the Migrant Caravan

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Barack, Washington, Wickenden, News, Obama, Politics, Wnyc, Lizza, President

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2018

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jonathan Blitzer spent a week in Mexico with the so-called caravan—a group of about five thousand migrants, most of them from Honduras, who are making a dangerous journey on foot to the U.S. border. Donald Trump, who has described the caravan as “invaders” who might include terrorists and criminals, is using the issue to galvanize Republicans for the midterms. The reality, which Blitzer describes to David Remnick, is remarkably different: exhausted people walking thirty miles a day in sandals and Crocs, sleeping largely in the open, and wholly dependent on townspeople along their route and a few aid groups for food and water. They travel in a group for protection from kidnappers, criminals, and the notoriously severe Mexican immigration authorities. They know little about how their trek has been politicized in the U.S. Those who make it to the U.S. border will likely be greeted by an overwhelming show of American force, but, for these migrants, almost any uncertainty is better than the certain poverty and violence of their home country.

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1:13.4	I'm Dorothy Wickenden. On today's Politics and More podcast, David Remnick talks with the New Yorker's
1:20.2	Jonathan Blitzer, who recently spent time with the caravan of Central American migrants
1:25.7	currently traveling through Mexico.
1:31.0	The election this week is going to be, quote, an election of the caravan.
1:35.9	That's according to the president of the United States.
1:38.8	Donald Trump has talked about the migrant caravan that it's now in Mexico, relentlessly, unceasingly, he's trying to whip up as much
1:46.7	fear as he can on the eve of the midterm elections. He's described it as an invading army
1:52.6	with potential terrorists and criminals in their midst. The reality of the caravan is something
1:58.9	entirely different, and one of our reporters is on the ground to describe it.
2:03.4	The New Yorker's Jonathan Blitzer spent a week reporting on the caravan, walking alongside them, and talking all day long with the thousands of people who have been heading north.
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