Reporter's Diary: Migrant caravan tensions

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02:26

In Tijuana, where the Central American Migrant Caravan stares across the border into the U.S., asylum seekers are in for an indeterminate wait.

The U.S. authorities are processing around 100 asylum requests per day, with women and children as a priority, migrants told CGTN.

It means a wait of months, if not years, for a caravan of more than 7,500 migrants.

Migrants stand at the border between Mexico and the United States. /CGTN Photo

And the number is growing.

More are arriving every day, as other migrants from across Central America end their 4,000 km odyssey in the border state of Baja California.

The mayor of Tijuana has described the migrant caravan as a "humanitarian crisis," and asked for aid from the United Nations to help them during their stay in the city as their numbers swell.

A scramble ensues when a box of doughnuts is delivered to the caravan. /CGTN Photo

Yet the caravan's attempted rush to the U.S. border on Sunday afternoon has done their compatriots no favor. Some 98 members of the group, who rushed to the border fence throwing rocks and bottles at the American authorities, were deported by Mexico.

But the altered perception of the migrants has led security chiefs in the United States to suggest that the military deployment to the border that had been set to come to a complete end by mid-December may now be extended indefinitely.

The U.S. forces "were being rushed by some very tough people," the mayor of Tijuana said at a press conference on Monday, as he defended the use of tear gas on the rushing migrants, a measure which succeeded in forcing the group back into Mexico.

Migrants wait indefinitely at the border between Mexico and the United States. /CGTN Photo

The military deployment is also shifting its focus, with some 300 troops being reassigned from posts in Arizona an Texas to the border in California, across the border from the bulk of the migrant caravan, in case of a second attempt.

Around 5,600 active US troops are currently deployed along the country's southern border, although figures suggest some may have already been stood down by the Pentagon.

As the caravan faces an indeterminate wait, they are increasingly unpopular in Tijuana, where the border rush incident saw the San Ysidro border closed by U.S. authorities – the world's busiest with around 200,000 crossings per day.

A migrant eats a doughnut earned from the scramble. /CGTN Photo

Tijuana's natives had already protested the presence of the migrants, and many locals took to the streets following the incident to condemn their actions.

Tijuana depends on the U.S. border economically, with many residents crossing the frontier on a daily basis to go to their jobs in the United States.

But with the migrant caravan's journey at an end, all asylum seekers can now do is wait for answers from across the border.