A two-story warehouse in a zone known for crime and prostitution near the US border was closed on Friday, with Tijuana officials citing sanitation as the reason why. Isain Venegas, a supervisor in Mexico’s public health system, said the shelter was overcrowded, poorly lit and lacked proper facilities for food preparation.
Officials told migrants, many fleeing poverty and violence in Honduras, they could move to a bigger shelter, run by the federal government, about seven miles from the border.
But dozens protested about the closure, saying they did not expect other sites to be any better.
Honduran migrant Reinerio Laine said: “Not one of the shelters in Tijuana has the conditions for them to keep us in.
“The authorities are tricking us.”
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The migrants were joined by US activists, forcing federal and local police in riot uniforms to take formation at the entrance.
Others migrants walked to nearby shelters, while some waited for a bus to take them to the larger government-run facility.
Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has failed to talk about how he will improve the “deplorable conditions” for the migrants travelling thousands of miles across Mexico to the US border.
Maria Claros, 28, from Honduras said: “We had hoped that now with President Lopez Obrador he could see the conditions we’re in.
“They said he was going to help, but they’ve treated us worse than animals.”
Mr Claros added: “We don’t have anywhere to wash or do our business.
“I bathe with cold water when I have 20 pesos to pay for it.”
Thousands of migrants have been trying to illegally enter the US in recent months.
Officials in mid-December said nearly 6,000 migrants have arrived in Tijuana.
They said around half are staying at a former concert venue, while several hundreds more are believed to be staying at other shelters across the city.
Republican firebrand Donald Trump wants to spend billions building a wall along the US-Mexico border.
The US President threatened to declare a national emergency to start construction on the wall without the approval of Congress.
This came after he met senior Democrats, who refused his requests for funding.
The hostile standoff has seen Mr Trump withhold support for a bill to fully fund the government until he gets money for the border wall.
He said he was prepared for the partial government shutdown, which is now in its third week, to last years.
Around 800,000 federal workers have not been paid since December 22.
Mr Trump tweeted: “I don’t care that most of the workers not getting paid are Democrats, I want to stop the Shutdown as soon as we are in agreement on Strong Border Security. I am in the White House ready to go, where are the Dems?
“We are working hard at the Border, but we need a WALL. In 2018, 1.7million pounds of narcotics seized, 17,000 adults arrested with criminal records, and 6000 gang members, including MS-13, apprehended. A big human trafficking problem.”