“Faith and Hope” Caravan Enters Mexico; DHS Posts “Our Time Has Come” as Group Turns North

A caravan calling itself Fe y Esperanza — Faith and Hope — has entered southern Mexico and resumed walking north after two days in Tapachula, Chiapas. The group left San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on Sept. 20, crossed Guatemala, and entered Mexico on Sept. 24–25 over the Rodolfo Robles bridge at Suchiate. Mexican police and National Migration Institute officers escorted the crossing. The caravan then walked about 40 kilometers in roughly 12 hours through Suchiate, Frontera Hidalgo, Metapa de Domínguez, and Tuxtla Chico before camping in Tapachula’s Parque Bicentenario.

It arrived with about 300 people, mostly Hondurans, including women and children. Local and wire reports say the column later grew past 600 after migrants already in Tapachula — from El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Haiti — joined. On Sunday, about 350 people left the park in rain from Tropical Depression 18 and headed for the Chiapas coastal highway toward Oaxaca. Some travelers told EFE they want to reach the United States. Others said they hope to work and regularize status inside Mexico. The group is still hundreds of miles from the U.S. border. Mexican authorities have broken up or redirected earlier caravans before they arrived as organized units.

José Zelaya, a Honduran traveling with seven relatives, told EFE he wants to reach the United States and that the column has no organizers beyond “hunger” and “necessity.” José Rodríguez, 25, said he was deported earlier in 2026 and is trying to rejoin a wife and 2-year-old son in the United States. “Our goal is to get to the border to cross to the other side,” he said. A U.S. Embassy message in Tegucigalpa on Sept. 21 said the borders are “closed to those who violate the law,” warned against smugglers, and stated that anyone who attempts illegal entry “will be deported.” Viral videos claiming a 5,000-person Honduran caravan used footage from earlier years; Guatemala’s migration institute counted a few hundred Hondurans entering that country, not thousands.

The Department of Homeland Security answered circulating reports of a large caravan with an official X post: “Our time has come,” attached to a hype-style video. The department has not issued a longer written statement naming this group. U.S. Border Patrol recorded 8,870 southwest-border arrests in August, according to DHS — 94 percent below the Biden-era monthly average and about 97 percent below the December 2023 peak, fewer than 300 encounters a day across the entire border. DHS said Border Patrol released no one into the interior that month, the 16th straight month of zero releases. President Trump’s second-term measures include a border emergency declaration, military and National Guard support, tighter asylum rules, and detention and removal instead of catch-and-release. Those policies remain in litigation. On that scale, a column of several hundred people is about two days of current Border Patrol arrests — if every member reaches the line and is encountered.

The U.S. midterms are five weeks away. Rep. Nancy Mace wrote that the travelers are “betting on a Democrat Congress in November.” Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene asked why a caravan had reappeared “now” and said Republicans were using the issue to drive turnout. Previous large Honduran caravans were most visible from 2018 to 2021. This is the first comparable organized departure from San Pedro Sula reported in several years. Whether the current group holds together through Oaxaca and northern Mexico, and how many attempt an illegal crossing, has not been determined.