A migrant caravan that began in Honduras has entered southern Mexico with participants saying they intend to reach the United States, prompting a terse response from the Department of Homeland Security as questions circulate about who, if anyone, is financially assisting the group.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security responded Sunday to reports of a new migrant caravan traveling through Mexico toward the United States, declaring “Our time has come” in a social media post as the group continued north from Mexico’s southern border.
The caravan entered Mexico on Thursday, Sept. 24, roughly five weeks before the Nov. 3 U.S. midterm elections. Reports have placed its size at more than 400 people, many of them Hondurans, although an independently verified current count was not available.
Images available through Reuters Connect show Honduran migrants walking along a highway in Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas, on Sept. 24 while traveling toward the United States. The material was supplied by Anadolu Agency through the Reuters Connect platform.
Separate Reuters video from Ciudad Hidalgo showed members of what participants called the “Caravan of Faith and Hope” traveling along a roadside carrying a Honduran flag. The footage documented Mexican officials providing water and food to members of the group.
Oscar Vanegas, a Honduran migrant traveling with the caravan, told Reuters that participants were financing their own journeys rather than being paid by an organizer.
“No one here is driving the caravan, we all left with a dream, a purpose, to reach the United States. No one here is getting paid. Each person has their own money, they spend it, and some are left with no money. There are people who come with no money, without a single peso,” Vanegas said.
“We all left with the purpose of reaching the United States, because the truth is, poverty is bad over there and right now, as I told you, I come from Honduras, thank God, here we are, the Mexicans support us, they give us food, they give us water.”
Another Honduran participant, Iker Carcamo, said the United States was his intended destination.
“Our plan is to reach the United States, God willing. I know things are difficult over there, but God gives opportunities to everyone and God left the land for man to explore. There should be no limits for any man, brother, do you understand me?” Carcamo said.
Asked what he wanted from the Mexican government, Carcamo said: “We firstly thank the president of Mexico and what we ask is simply for help and for them to give us free passage because we come in peace to seek a better life for our families, brother.”
The caravan attracted additional attention over the weekend after independent border reporter Anthony Aguero posted video and allegations about the group’s outside support.
Aguero wrote that more than 400 migrants, predominantly from Honduras, had entered Mexico and alleged that the movement was being assisted by Proyecto Faro and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, or ADRA.
“Over 400 aliens predominantly from Honduras entered Mexico on Thursday, ready to make their way to the US southern border… Here’s footage of the caravan. Someone is incentivizing this movement, this is not organic,” Aguero wrote, according to copies of the post circulated online.
Aguero identified Proyecto Faro and ADRA as the two organizations he said were principally assisting the caravan.
Publicly available information confirms that both organizations exist and perform immigrant or humanitarian work, but evidence reviewed for this article did not independently establish that either organization financed or organized this particular September 2026 caravan.
Proyecto Faro, based in Rockland County, New York, describes itself as an immigrant-led organization providing legal assistance, mutual aid, educational programs, material support and assistance to people confronting immigration detention. Its published donor list includes the Harry Donenfeld Foundation, Gitlin Family Foundation, Freedom Together Foundation, New York Immigration Coalition, several religious organizations, charitable foundations and New York state agencies.
Aguero highlighted the Jewish backgrounds of several donors or people associated with foundations on that list. Proyecto Faro’s own funder page lists the organizations but does not characterize its support according to donors’ religion. The available information also does not establish that those grants were directed toward the current caravan.
Freedom Together Foundation, formerly known as the JPB Foundation, is among Proyecto Faro’s listed funders. Its stated mission is supporting organizations working on community power, democracy, civil rights and related issues, and its website says it funds U.S.-based grantees.
ADRA, meanwhile, is the humanitarian organization associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Christian denomination.
The organization operates humanitarian and development programs in more than 100 countries and says its funding comes from individuals, corporations, foundations and governmental and intergovernmental agencies, including USAID and the United Nations. ADRA says it does not condition assistance on religious affiliation and does not proselytize through its programs.
Aguero asserted that U.S. government funding, primarily through USAID, has provided ADRA approximately $385 million across more than 100 awards and cited more than $36 million in U.S. funding through the end of 2025.
ADRA’s audited financial statements do confirm that USAID historically represented a significant source of the organization’s revenue. Its 2024 audited report said that after the Trump administration paused or terminated federal assistance programs in January 2025, 38% of ADRA’s USAID programs had been terminated.
ADRA’s own financial disclosures provide annual reports, audited financial statements and IRS filings through 2025. Its public FAQ states that its 2024 program expenses totaled $248 million and that funding came from private contributors as well as government and international organizations such as USAID and the U.N.
Those funding relationships, however, are separate from the question of whether ADRA provided money, transportation, food or other assistance to this particular caravan. The material reviewed did not independently verify Aguero’s assertion connecting the organization to the group now traveling through Mexico.
Reuters footage offered a different account from at least one caravan participant. Vanegas specifically said no one was being paid and that migrants were spending their own money while receiving food and water from people in Mexico.
As reports about the caravan spread online, DHS entered the discussion Sunday.
The department’s official account posted a video response accompanied by the statement, “Our time has come.”
The video used footage featuring former Philadelphia Eagles safety Brian Dawkins accompanied by Korn’s 1994 song “Blind.” Reports said DHS posted it in response to another social media message describing a “huge migrant caravan” heading toward the southern U.S. border.
DHS did not use the post to announce a specific deployment, border-policy change or enforcement operation directed at the caravan.
The caravan is still deep inside Mexico, and its members would need to travel a substantial additional distance before reaching the U.S. border. Individual members also may leave the group, seek status in Mexico, return home or travel by different routes before the caravan reaches northern Mexico, as has occurred with previous migrant groups.
The timing has generated political attention because the caravan’s journey is unfolding shortly before the U.S. midterm elections, but available reporting does not establish that the caravan was organized because of the election or by a U.S. political organization.
Reuters’ footage instead recorded participants describing poverty and economic opportunity as reasons for traveling north.
The group’s eventual size and destination also remain uncertain. Migrant caravans can change considerably during journeys through Guatemala and Mexico as people join or leave.
What is confirmed is that a group containing Honduran migrants crossed into southern Mexico last week, members publicly stated an intention to reach the United States, Mexican officials were seen providing basic supplies, and DHS subsequently responded publicly as attention to the caravan spread online.
Claims that Proyecto Faro or ADRA are financing the caravan remain allegations rather than independently established facts based on the evidence currently available.
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