MAPASTEPEC.- The government of Mexico dissolved the last migrant caravan, which had been in the southern state of Chiapas since the end of December, after committing to process its members and eventually grant them some type of document that grants them legal stay in the country.
When reporting the terms of the agreement reached with the migrants, Roberto González López, head of the office of the National Migration Institute (INM) in Chiapas, He explained that the cases of foreigners will be channeled to the National System for the Comprehensive Development of the Family (DIF), which provides social assistance services.
On this occasion there will be no immediate delivery of humanitarian visas or Multiple Immigration Forms, as occurred with other caravans.
Shortly after the agreement was reached, authorities began transferring most of the migrants to a DIF shelter located at the customs office in the town of Huixtla, near the border with Guatemala, amid misinformation and confusion.
Honduran Senia Rodríguez was standing in line with her husband and two children to board the buses, but she was not clear about the procedure offered by the immigration authorities.
Salvadoran Ana Ventura was in the same situation, who was waiting with her husband and three children, ages 15, 12, and 10.
“We do not know. The majority who have already left say that they are giving it (the documents), but knowing how true it is,” said Ventura.
Activist Luis García Villagrán, from the local organization Centro de Dignificación Humana AC — who was guiding the contingent — indicated that, in accordance with a formal response from the INM, priority will be given to families and vulnerable groups.
García Villagrán asked the immigration authorities to expedite the procedures to deliver legal stay documents to migrants so that they can continue on their way to other cities in Mexico or the border with the United States.
“We are going to wait for them to process everyone, including the single ones, so that then we can each leave,” he commented.
The caravan, made up of about 6,000 migrants, left on Christmas Eve from the town of Tapachula, on the border with Guatemala, and for five days traveled about 100 kilometers in the state of Chiapas until reaching the town of Mapastepc, where it stopped with the half of its members.
Migrant caravan – AP
AP/Edgar Hernández Clemente
The mobilization coincided with the meeting held in the middle of last week between the country’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in the Mexican capital to evaluate the migration crisis.
The meeting took place after President Joe Biden’s phone call to his Mexican counterpart on December 20 to express his government’s concern about the growing flow of migrants at the southern border of the United States, where up to 12,000 illegal crossings were detected. day.
During the meeting, Mexican authorities asked the United States to prioritize the reopening of some border crossings closed due to the avalanche of migrants.
The request was responded to days later by Washington, which promised to resume operations at the Eagle Pass, Texas, crossings as of January 4; San Ysidro in San Diego, California; Lukeville in Arizona and in the pedestrian port of Morley in Nogales, Arizona, according to the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported Tuesday night.
Migrant caravan – AP
AP/Edgar Hernández Clemente
Mexican industries were affected by the temporary closure of two railroad crossings with Texas in late December, which was carried out on the grounds that Border Patrol agents had to be reassigned to deal with the high number of entries into the country. .
The region is experiencing an unprecedented migratory flow that has not been controlled despite the United States’ attempts to open new channels to reach the country legally, while at the same time harshening the consequences of doing so irregularly.
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, according to official figures. In addition, a record of almost 137,000 people requested refuge in the country.
Source: With information from AP
