Angry Tijuana Residents Push Back: ‘This Is an Invasion’

Hundreds of angry residents took to the streets of downtown Tijuana on Sunday to protest the caravan of Central American migrants that has been streaming into the city in recent weeks.

Carrying Mexican flags and singing the national anthem, the demonstrators marched to a sports complex where about 2,000 of the migrants are being housed. There, held back by a wall of riot police, they denounced the mostly Honduran migrants as “criminals” and “freeloaders” who were openly flouting Mexican law.

“This is an invasion!” shouted local carpenter Luis Alexis Mendoza, according to the Los Angeles Times. “We demand respect. We demand that our laws be followed.”

Sunday’s anti-caravan march reflected simmering tensions in Tijuana, a sprawling border city of about 1.6 million, over the arrival of the latest Central American caravan. While the city has long been a way-point for migrants of all stripes heading to the U.S., it has not had to deal with the presence of thousands of homeless Central Americans who are waiting indefinitely to apply for asylum at the ports of entry.

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