“They say they are even bigger and stronger than the last caravan,” said Irma Garrido, a member of the migrant advocacy group Reactiva Tijuana Foundation.  

Meanwhile, thousands of Central American migrants from a caravan that left Honduras in October remain stranded at the U.S.-Mexico border and languishing in crowded Tijuana shelters while they wait out a lengthy process to file asylum requests with the United States.

Coordinators who helped direct the migrants on the 2,000-mile trek with bullhorns, arranging for buses and giving advice along the way, have mostly vanished. Many of the migrants say they feel abandoned and unsure where to turn next. Some are ready to return home.

Garrido said this new, larger caravan will likely be joined by more people in El Salvador and in Guatemala, but she said they don’t plan on coming straight to the Tijuana-San Diego border, where resources are already stretched nearly to a breaking point.