A caravan of hundreds of Central American asylum seekers that President Trump has fixated on in recent weeks arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border this week.
The Associated Press reported that roughly 130 Central Americans arrived in buses in the city of Tijuana, Mexico, late Tuesday, and another 200 were expected to arrive on Wednesday.
The first batch of asylum seekers are expected to try to enter the U.S. at a border crossing near San Diego on Sunday, the AP reported. The group is mostly women and children.
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The Department of Homeland Security on Monday said it will prosecute any members of the group who cross the border into the U.S. illegally.
“The Trump administration is committed to enforcing our immigration laws — whether persons are part of this ‘caravan’ or not,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement.
Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he had directed the Department of Homeland Security to turn away caravan members at the border.
The caravan started in late March in Tapachula, a city in Mexico’s southernmost state of Chiapas, as roughly 1,100 Central American migrants banded together for safety and to make a political statement about migration and borders.
The caravan has already made several stops in Mexico, where about half its members applied for asylum or otherwise remained in that country. Earlier this month, 600 migrants left Mexico City en route to the United States to apply for asylum.
As the group progressed toward the U.S., Trump fired off multiple tweets portraying the caravan as a threat to border security. He used the subject to criticize Mexico for its failure to stop the group and to call for Congress to enact stricter immigration laws.