Ciudad Juárez, Mexico—President Donald Trump’s orders to deploy thousands of National Guard troops to secure the US frontier with Mexico did not stop one determined migrant from hopping the border wall on Friday.
With the help of three other men – two to give him a boost and one to stand as a lookout – the young man jumped the rusty metal barrier that separates Ciudad Juarez from Sunland Park, New Mexico.
The whole operation took less than two minutes.
“He couldn’t get over! He was taking forever,” said one of the men who helped him, telling AFP he has seen people scale the six-meter (20-foot) wall in one minute flat.
He then ran off to avoid being spotted by US Customs and Border Protection.
The young border jumper, who hailed from southern Mexico, meanwhile disappeared into the desert, running toward a group of houses just visible on the horizon.
Trump has unleashed a flurry of furious tweets ever since seeing news reports on a caravan of more than 1,000 Central American migrants crossing Mexico toward the United States.
On Thursday he ordered 2,000 to 4,000 National Guardsmen to the border – drawing a bitter reaction from Mexico.
The activists organizing the migrant caravan have announced they will no longer try to reach the border en masse, and individual migrants and families have each begun going their own way.
Many remain in central Mexico. But some have already made it to the border, according to Javier Calvillo, a Catholic priest who runs a shelter for migrants in Ciudad Juarez.
“Five migrants who were part of the caravan arrived here this week, but they’re already gone,” he said.
“They crossed into the United States, or tried to.”
