Roughly 4,000 Honduran migrants are now in Guatemala, heading north, NBC News reports.

• "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Mexico to meet with his counterparts on Friday, where plans to stop the caravan will be a 'prominent' topic of discussion," they report.
• Trump has personally threatened aid to Honduras if they don't stop the caravan, which is no longer within its borders.

Between the lines: "Border Patrol agents arrested 16,658 family members in September, the highest one-month total on record and an 80 percent increase from July," the Washington Post reports.

• If accurate, that's more than a 50% jump from last year, which was already an outlier.
• "In September, U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 41,400 undocumented immigrants, up from 37,544 in August," NBC News reports.

The big picture: Even if Trump reinstated a form of family separation in an attempt to deter migrants, they would overwhelm Health and Human Services. The agency already struggles to house and care for more than 13,000 migrant children.

P.S. Nancy Pelosi yesterday: “It happens to be like a manhood issue for the president, building a wall, and I’m not interested in that..."

• “We can’t allow him to say we’re not interested in protecting the border... That isn’t the only way to protect the border. In fact, it’s probably the worst way to protect the border.”

The bottom line: After two very abnormal years in politics, the stakes from November look increasingly familiar ... taxes, health care and immigration.

Go deeper: Trump's kids crisis gets worse

• You have about 8% of Americans in the hard-left camp — almost all white (80%), all well-educated, all voting, all giving money and time to campaigns, all active on social media. Their combined voices dominate Democratic politics. 
• You have about 6% in the hard-right camp — almost all white (88%), all well-educated, all voting, all giving money and time to campaigns, all active on social media. Their combined voices dominate Republican politics.
• Oh, and these two groups basically hate everything about each other. 

This eye-opening breakdown comes from "Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape," by the international nonprofit group More in Common.

• The report, one of the largest-ever studies of U.S. polarization, is based on an 8,000-person poll by YouGov, with about a 1% margin of error.
• I learned about the study from a column by the N.Y. Times' David Brooks ("The Rich White Civil War: A smarter look at America’s divide"), who said these two extreme wings of U.S. politics have become "cultish."

The study finds that America's two extreme wings comprise just 14% of the population, "yet it often feels as if our national conversation has become a shouting match between these two groups."

• The left wing's "Progressive Activists" are "deeply concerned with ... equity, fairness. ... They tend to be more secular, cosmopolitan, and highly engaged with social media." In raising children, they value independence, creativity and curiosity.
• The right wing's "Devoted Conservatives" feel that "America is embattled, and they perceive themselves as the last defenders of traditional values." In raising children, they emphasize respect, obedience and manners. (A larger, less activist cohort, "Traditional Conservatives" is — like both extremes — racially homogenous: 79% white.)

I interviewed one of the study's co-authors, Stephen Hawkins, research director of More in Common USA, who told me the two wings are "talking to each other too little, with too much suspicion and too little giving credit."

• "They have inverse world views, but what they have in common is that they're very consistent," Hawkins said. "You could even maybe use the word 'dogmatic,' or 'ideologically rigid.'"

Be smart ... Good news for third-party dreamers: Tw0-thirds of Americans (the study's "Exhausted Majority") have had it with this white fight — and yearn for something new.

Driving the news today:

• Turkey turned over the passport information of 7 of the 15 Saudis suspected in Khashoggi's killing to the Washington Post, which blurred the photos and names before running them online.
• U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has asked the Saudis to forgo usual diplomatic privilege in order to facilitate the investigation. (Neither the Saudis nor the U.S. are likely to have any interest in this request.)
• Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Fox & Friends this morning that "toxic" MBS "can never be a leader on the world stage" and that sanctions are coming, no matter what Trump does.

Between the lines: Trump has now twice appeared to take Saudi denials about Khashoggi's disappearance at face value:

• Trump today: "Just spoke with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish Consulate. He ... told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter."
• Trump yesterday: "[T]he King firmly denied any knowledge of it. He didn’t really know.  Maybe — I don’t want to get into his mind — but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. ... All I can do is report what he told me. And he told me in a very firm way that they had no knowledge of it. He said it very strongly."

What's at stake:

• "Officials said the dilemma comes at a fraught moment for the Trump administration, which is expected to reimpose harsh sanctions against Iran on Nov. 5, with the intent of cutting off all Iranian oil exports." [NYT]
• MBS is aggressively courting U.S. and Western investments, hoping to diversify his country's finances beyond oil revenues.
• The Saudis are major importers of U.S. weapons, and they will be wary of potential sanctions.

The bottom line: This story is hurtling to a public conclusion, regardless of whether the Saudis decide to be forthcoming.