Let’s take stock of the outlandish claims from the Trump administration that have piled up over the past week, as a caravan of more than 5,000 migrants from Central America began its journey to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Thousands of people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have sought refuge in the United States during both the Obama and Trump administrations, fleeing gang violence and poverty in their home countries. This exodus has been going on since 2014.
Journalists on the ground say many migrants caught wind of this latest caravan via messaging apps, viral posts on social media and TV news reports before deciding to join. In Honduras, where the group originated, the poverty rate was 60.9 percent in 2016, according to the World Bank. The country had one of the highest murder rates in the world in 2017, 43.6 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Observatory of Violence at the National Autonomous University of Honduras.
View the complete October 25 article by Salvator RIzzo on the Washington Post website here.