Trump And The Migrant Caravan: Two Worlds Apart

There's speeches and tweets and fear-filled propaganda. And then there's reality. That's what becomes so blatantly evident after listening to the New Yorker's radio podcast this week. Every single question editor David Remnick poses to staff writer Jonathan Blitzer, who is still in Mexico and who has been reporting and traveling with the Migrant Caravan for the past week, is an opportunity to see the enormous distance between the political myths being manufactured around this story and what is actually happening.

Trump has already ordered troops to the border and is whipping up fear (just before the mid-term elections) by creating a narrative that these migrants—a little over 5000—are dangerous and violent people, that among them are terrorists from the Middle East and that the United States is at grave peril of "invasion".

Blitzer describes them as a group of desperate mothers, fathers, teens and children from Honduras, walking in Crocs and sandals for 30 miles per day, who have left their country because it is no longer sustainable for them to live there. The only reason why they have decided to march together in such a large group is for protection. The route is filled with dangerous gangs. 

For most of these people the United States is an abstraction. They are unaware of how Trump and right-wing Republicans have made them their newest target of hate. They are at the moment more concerned with a change of government in Mexico, as Andrés Manuel López Obrador starts his presidential term next month. The migrant caravan and Trump are simply "two worlds apart", says Blitzer.

"An amazing thing to behold" is the way Blitzer describes the way the locals in Southern Mexico, particularly in Chiapas and Oaxaca (amongst the poorest States in the country) have helped these travellers on the way. Even a tiny town, with a population of 4000, felt it was their moral responsibility to help with food and shelter, whatever they could offer. They know these people depend on them.