Tijuana Mayor discusses migrant caravan amid crisis

The mayor of Tijuana discussed his views on the caravan of Central American migrants for a documentary called “Stuck in Tijuana,” directed by documentary filmmaker Charlie Minn.

Thousands of Central American migrants left their home countries and headed to the United States. Many made their way to the Tijuana-San Diego border to claim asylum in the US. Many are still there while their asylum claims are being processed.

“What’s going on with those people, with that government– Salvadorean government, Guatemalan government, Honduran government? What are they doing? How can they be so hard headed, making people leave their towns, their home towns, thinking it will be much better for them? What’s going on? Corruption.”

The Mayor said it’s not fair that Mexico has to deal with the problem because many of the migrants left their home towns to go to the United States and not to Mexico.

Commonly, when migrants seek asylum in the U.S., they are allowed to stay in the U.S., but there are so many asylum claims they are being forced to stay in Tijuana.

The Mayor said its hurting the economy and its hurting tourism, “It’s hitting us hard. It’s costing us 550,000 pesos a day.”