One dead, dozens injured as migrant caravan clashes with Mexican authorities

One member of a migrant caravan was killed, and dozens of police officers and migrants were injured as one of the migrant caravans trekking toward the United States through Mexico clashed with authorities, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Henry Diaz, 26, was reportedly struck in the head with a rubber bullet fired by a Mexican police officer and died at a hospital, although Mexican interior secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida said officers were not armed.

"The police did not have weapons, did not intend to attack any person, and the instruments used were deterrents so that no women, children or young people would suffer any harm," Navarrete Prida said.

What's going on?

While one nearly 4,000-person caravan is about 900 miles away from the U.S. border as of Monday, another group that set out north from Central America later met resistance from Mexican police as they illegally broke through the border between Mexico and Guatemala.

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that members of the caravan busted through a fence Guatemala put up on a bridge that leads to a border crossing into Mexico. Many of the migrants made it past Guatemalan authorities that attempted to stop them with tear gas and shields.

On the other side, they ran into Mexican police. Migrants threw rocks and bottles and officers allegedly fired rubber bullets as a police helicopter dropped tear gas from above.

Navarrete Prida said that migrants were throwing Molotov cocktails at police.

What's the damage?

According to Mexican authorities, 10 police officers were hurt, with two of them sustaining serious injuries. As many as 100 immigrants may have been injured in the conflict as well.

A volatile situation

With President Donald Trump ordering 5,200 active duty military troops to the southern border to meet the first migrant caravan, it's unclear whether the caravan's arrival will result in the same kind of violence as has taken place in Mexico.

Some have criticized the use of that many troops as overkill for the situation, but Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy said Trump is showing where his priority lies.

"The president has made it clear that border security is national security," O'Shaughnessy told The New York Times.