Migrant Caravan Not Wanted In Tijuana As Violence Breaks Out

About 300 local residents gathered by the encampment to demand the migrants leave the upscale Playas de Tijuana neighborhood and go to the facility.

During a confrontation that lasted more than three hours, area residents sang the Mexican national anthem and waved Mexican flags. They chanted “Mexico! Mexico!” each time a bus transporting migrants left the beach for the temporary shelter. Mostly women and children went to the shelters, while young men from the caravan said they were determined to stay together at the beach and await the estimated 2,000 more caravan members on their way to Tijuana.

Pushing, shoving, kicking and a couple of blows broke out between masses of residents and migrants, illuminated by the crescent moon and mobile light towers, set up by authorities on the beach on the U.S. side of the border. More than three dozen municipal and federal police watched, separating people and trying to prevent the situation from devolving into fistfights and chaos.