In Pictures: Desperation to migrate grows in battered Honduras

The second-largest city in Honduras, San Pedro Sula, is the economic engine and the departure gate for thousands of Honduran migrants in recent years. There, many families are caught in a cycle of migration. Poverty and gang violence push them out and increasingly aggressive measures to stop them, driven by the United States government, scuttle their efforts and send them back. The economic damage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the devastation wrought by November’s hurricanes have only added to those driving forces. Word of a new administration in the US with a softer approach to migrants has raised hopes, too. In his first weeks in office, US President Joe Biden signed nine executive orders reversing Trump measures related to family separation, border security and immigration. But fearing a surge in immigration, the administration also sent the message that little will change quickly for migrants arriving at the southern US border.