MEXICO CITY.- Several thousand adults, minors and entire families of migrants advanced on Christmas Day on foot along the roads of southern Mexico with the aspiration that the Mexican authorities would allow them to reach the border with the United States.
The group, about 6,000 people of different nationalities but the majority Central Americans, Venezuelans or Cubans, left Tapachula on Sunday, almost on the border with Guatemala, in what constitutes the largest caravan formed this year.
It takes place on the eve of a high-level delegation from the United States arriving in Mexico to agree with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on new measures to control the growing flow of migrants through the region.
Honduran Mariela Amaya, who was traveling with her 7-year-old son, regretted that the governments of neighboring countries try to toughen policies instead of helping them have a better life. “They don’t understand that one needs to move forward.”
“Why can’t they help us, shake hands? We need support from them,” he said while walking under the stifling heat, almost pulling the child.
The local police and the National Guard followed the contingent without intervening. At one point, a family from the area stood on the road to give away tamales and water.
The formation of these groups has been constant in recent years due to the slowness of the immigration regulation processes in Tapachula and the lack of resources, decent living and work options so that foreigners can afford to wait for documents in that city.
Previously, security forces tried to block their path, but since the end of 2021, the authorities chose to let the migrants get tired of walking and tried to break up the groups by offering them temporary documentation that, in many cases, foreigners use to continue their journey. north on their own.
“Everything that revolves around migration is an electoral issue for both the United States and Mexico,” denounced on Monday activist Luis García Villagrán, who accompanied the group and tried to pressure the authorities to provide them with documents. “Yes, there is a budget,” he assured. “We are asking to be attended to and the problem is over.”
The region is experiencing an unprecedented flow of migrants that has not been controlled despite the United States’ attempts to open new channels to emigrate legally while toughening the consequences of doing so irregularly.
But although points were installed to process asylum applications in South America or Central America, many migrants say they are unaware of these procedures and that is why they embark on the migratory route.
The Venezuelan Jessica García is one of them. García said that when she was in Venezuela she tried to open the application launched by the US authorities, called CBPOne, to register as an asylum seeker but she could not. She did not know that you can only enter this program from central or northern Mexico. She had not heard of places to do management either.
“This journey has been very hard for us migrants,” said the young woman who was traveling with six members of her family, sad at having to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas walking. “We need help from immigration and the government, to put on the hand on your heart and give us safe passage,” he added.
More than half a million migrants, many of them Venezuelans, crossed the Darién jungle this year, on the border between Colombia and Panama. Mexico detected more than 680,000 foreigners in an irregular situation from January to November, all according to official figures. In addition, a record number of almost 137,000 people requested refuge in this country.
The situation worsened in December on the border between Mexico and the United States when US authorities recorded up to 10,000 illegal crossings daily on some days, a totally unusual figure which caused the authorities of that country to close a couple of railway crossings for a few days to relocate to its border control officers and that Mexico suffered from the economic costs of the closures.
After a conversation between President Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the head of the White House decided to send the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and the House National Security Advisor to Mexico. Blanca, Liz Sherwood-Randall, to agree on new immigration measures with the Mexican president.
According to López Obrador, the visit is scheduled for Wednesday.
At the beginning of December, the National Migration Institute ordered the temporary cancellation of various operations for the transfer and return of migrants due to lack of budget and the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance suspended service in its offices until January due to the vacation period, which encouraged many migrants join the caravan.
López Obrador acknowledged that Americans want Mexico to do more to block migrants to the south, on the border with Guatemala, and to make their passage through the country more difficult, but he said it is not just about containment but also about increasing cooperation at the border. development and solving “political problems” in countries like Cuba or Venezuela that encourage migration.
Source: AFP
