Sounds like the first line of a movie script based on some dystopian future, doesn’t it? But it’s actually an underreported story from the real world.

I first became aware of this developing tale thanks to a tweet from Nicolas Medina Mora lionizing the work of Adolfo Flores of Buzzfeed. What is Adolfo up to? Take a look.

https://twitter.com/MedinaMora/status/979729254496854016

Flores is apparently on a lengthy trek through all of Mexico with a literal army of migrants from a number of countries including Honduras. Normally one might imagine that a potential national security crisis for the United States such as this would be cause for raising the alarm. Instead, the Buzzfeed reporter is cheering them on and talking about their “struggle.”

You won’t see much in the way of coverage of this on the major networks or CNN, but Buzzfeed is covering it.

For five days now hundreds of Central Americans — children, women, and men, most of them from Honduras — have boldly crossed immigration checkpoints, military bases, and police in a desperate, sometimes chaotic march toward the United States. Despite their being in Mexico without authorization, no one has made any effort to stop them.

Organized by a group of volunteers called Pueblos Sin Fronteras, or People Without Borders, the caravan is intended to help migrants safely reach the United States, bypassing not only authorities who would seek to deport them, but gangs and cartels who are known to assault vulnerable migrants.

Organizers like Rodrigo Abeja hope that the sheer size of the crowd will give immigration authorities and criminals pause before trying to stop them.

“If we all protect each other we’ll get through this together,” Abeja yelled through a loudspeaker on the morning they left Tapachula, on Mexico’s border with Guatemala, for the nearly monthlong trek.

This isn’t a group of family members or some isolated, organized clan. This is an army. Flores numbers them in the hundreds but looking at the pictures coming from the “march” it clearly appears that their numbers are swelling. The real figure, as cited by Mora, is likely already more than a thousand. Their purpose? They make no bones about it when asked. They, “hope American authorities will grant them asylum or, for some, be absent when they attempt to cross the border illegally.”

Perhaps they’ve been convinced that they can simply apply for refugee status or asylum when they arrive. And they actually can apply, but that doesn’t mean that they will be accepted on that basis. Further, Mexico bears some responsibility for helping to prevent this sort of organized invasion. Just this week our new Homeland Security Secretary met with Mexico’s Foreign Minister and signed agreements related to customs and border security. All of this is happening in the shadow of those NAFTA restructuring talks. It’s worth asking why, as Flores reports, nobody from Mexico is doing a thing to slow down this march. In fact, in some cases, the Buzzfeed reporter suggests that Mexican towns and cities are actually hurrying them along.

The municipality we’re at now is offering buses to get us to the next town. It’s been happening at several stops, I imagine they’re more interested in getting people out of their public squares. pic.twitter.com/6ay7Rn8fzI

— Adolfo Flores (@aflores) March 30, 2018

This army of interlopers moving across Mexico “without authorization” as Flores puts it (translated to “illegally”) is seeking to overwhelm the resources of immigration officials and are ready to cross the border illegally if an opening presents itself. If Mexico allows this to simply happen with no intercession they shouldn’t expect such a friendly reception with the State Department and the White House.