Some of the caravan organizers said that in the Mexican capital, they intended to demand the right of free movement within Mexico after having been confined in camps for months, but others said that the will instead continue their trek north to the U.S. border.

National Guard troops in riot gear armed with plastic shields tried to set up a human roadblock to contain the throngs of migrants, but were unable to hold back the protestors, who pushed their way past screaming “freedom, freedom.”

The soldiers made no attempt to pursue the migrants once they had broken the human roadblock.

Many of the migrants had been held in squallered camps for months in Tapachula, must north of Guatemala,from where most had entered Mexico. Others had been living on sidewalks and in  public parks.”

An earlier group of 12,000 mostly Haitians migrants left  Tapachula in early September and wound up a few days later in Del Rio, Texas, wreaking social havoc in that U.S. border town and casting a spotlight on U.S. President Joe Biden’s ambiguous and confusing border policies.