The Pentagon will deploy more than 5,000 soldiers to the US-Mexico border, a top general said Monday, as President Donald Trump warned a caravan of Central American migrants that the military was waiting.
"By the end of the week, we will deploy over 5,200 soldiers to the southwest border," Air Force General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command, told reporters.
The deployment would represent a sharp increase from initial estimates last week, when US officials said about 800 active-duty troops would be sent to provide assistance.
Hundreds of Hondurans crossed a river into Mexico in a fresh wave of migrants heading to the United States on Monday.
Men, women and children crossed the Suchiate River from Guatemala into Mexico on rafts made from truck tires, or by forming human chains to avoid being swept away. Others swam across after Mexican authorities refused to open a border bridge.
United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command General Terrence John O'Shaughnessy. Source: AP
More than a thousand Honduran migrants broke through a Guatemalan police cordon to reach the river the day before, attempting to join a larger caravan walking toward the US border.
A caravan that left two weeks ago has made its way into Mexico, where the group has swelled to 7,000 mostly Honduran migrants, according to a UN estimate.
The caravan of migrants clash with the Guatemalan Police, in Tecun Uman, Guatemala. Source: EPA
The migrants are walking towards the US despite threats from President Donald Trump to employ the military to prevent them from entering.
Mexican television showed a migration officer telling Hondurans behind the metal gate that they needed to follow "legal procedures" to enter the country in a "calm and safe way."
