More details on the news item(s) that caused the Trump Easter morning Fox-News-inspired freakout @ WaPo, Why U.S.-bound ‘caravans’ of Central American migrants are getting Trump’s attention by Alex Horton:

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Why are they moving in a caravan?

The Fox News opinion segment was in response to a BuzzFeed report on Friday that more than a thousand Central Americans, primarily from Honduras, were winding their way up through Mexico to the U.S. border on a nearly month-long trip that began March 25. These migrants are looking to seek asylum from criminal elements back home or slip into the United States undetected.

Moving in a large group is expected to blunt the efforts of criminal gangs and cartels known to isolate and later rob immigrants, many of whom bring large sums of money to make the long journey north through Mexico. The caravan organizers, Pueblos Sin Fronteras, or People Without Borders, appeared to have concluded that it is safer for these people to travel together.

That trip can be deadly as people find their way along various routes that go directly north to Texas, northwest to Arizona or along the coast to California.

Just about every route is more than a thousand miles long and is canvassed by robbers and corrupt police who shake down the immigrants, who have little access to legal recourse. A network of commercial locomotives is veined throughout Mexico in a 1,450-mile cannonball run. Migrants ride on top of the trains, occasionally falling off and breaking bones or suffering severe dehydration.

Members of the caravan said they would attempt to ride the trains, but in 2014, more guards and trains moving faster through stations made it more difficult for migrants to catch rides. 

Migrants have many names for the trains, such as “El tren de los desconocidos” (the train of the unknowns) and “El tren de la muerte” (the train of death). But its most common name is “La Bestia”: the Beast.

What is Mexico doing about the flow of migrants? [....]