The first wave of migrants from the Central American caravan has arrived in the Mexican city of Tijuana — about 80 members of the LGBT community, some of whom were seen scaling a fence along the coastal border community.
They split off from the larger group of more than 3,600 migrants in Mexico City after what Honduran migrant Cesar Mejia told reporters was weeks of discriminatory treatment by locals and other travelers,
according to NPR.
Several people jumped or crawled through openings in the fence onto US soil Sunday but quickly ran back when Border Patrol agents approached,
Fox 5 San Diego reported.
“Whenever we arrived at a stopping point, the LGBT community was the last to be taken into account in every way. So our goal was to change that and say, ‘This time we are going to be first,’ ” Mejia said.
The group in Tijuana included Hondurans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans, including transgender men and women, and also several children.
Most plan to use their status as members of a persecuted class to request asylum in the United States as early as Thursday, the news outlet reported.
“We are fleeing a country where there’s a lot of crime against us,” an unidentified transgender woman told reporters.
On Sunday, they arrived at the tony enclave of Coronado in Playas de Tijuana, a few miles from the San Diego port of entry.
