Donald Trump is wrong about Honduran migrants. The Democrats are incoherent

ACCORDING TO President Donald Trump, the “caravan” of migrants trudging north towards the United States represents “an assault on our country”. He adds that among the thousands of Central American pedestrians are criminals, gangsters and Middle Eastern terrorists. He hints that the entire spectacle was funded by Democrats. When he vows to send troops to the border to keep the migrants out, his supporters cheer.Much of what Mr Trump says is untrue, or at least unsubstantiated. As our correspondent in Tapachula reports (see ), the migrants in the caravan are mostly ordinary Hondurans who would rather live somewhere peaceful and rich than poor and violent. There is no evidence of Middle Easterners among them, or an unusual number of criminals. Nor is there a shred of evidence that Democrats had anything to do with organising the exodus. Why would they? The idea of a caravan was first popularised by a Honduran activist, and snowballed. It is easy to see why. Life is much better in the United States than in Honduras. And the journey, overland through Guatemala and Mexico, is dangerous. Migrants have often been robbed or beaten up along the way. Travelling in a large group makes that less likely. Small wonder that so many Hondurans, on hearing that the caravan was passing, decided to join it.