⁍ The caravan is the biggest since the coronavirus pandemic hit Central America in March.

---

⁍ It comes just a month before the U.S. presidential election.

---

⁍ Republican President Donald Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a key part of his platform.

---

– Thousands of migrants from a Central American caravan moving toward the US border forced their way past armed Guatemalan security troops on the country’s border with Honduras on Thursday, the AP reports. According to Reuters, the caravan is the biggest since the coronavirus pandemic hit Central America in March, shutting off travel as well as triggering a rise in unemployment and poverty. It comes just a month before the US presidential election. Republican President Donald Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a key part of his platform. In one incident shown on Facebook Live, a crowd of about 1,000 mostly young men and women carrying backpacks and small children forced their way past armed Guatemalan security forces at the Honduran border post of Corinto. Many of the migrants were wearing face masks. Guatemalan authorities had tried to prevent them from entering by demanding proof that they did not have the coronavirus, said immigrants and officials from both sides of the border. Guatemala’s top migration official appealed to Honduran authorities to stop these flows in their territory. ‘(We) ask the Honduran authorities to stop these flows in their territory. This cannot be repeated,’ Guatemalan director of immigration, Guillermo Diaz, told Honduran HRN radio station, voicing fears that more migrants may be on the way. Previous caravans have incurred the wrath of Trump, whose Republican party has used harsh rhetoric about immigrants as a tactic to motivate US voters in past elections.