According to the Panamanian government, more than half a million migrants They passed through there this year – double that of 2022 – but the International Organization for Migration (IOM) sees a “significant tendency” in Cubans and Africans to choose “air routes to reach Central America, avoiding Darién.”
On the other hand the flow of Asian and African migrants (Guinea, China, Senegal, India, Afghanistan, Angola and others), entering through Honduras, mainly through its border with Nicaragua, increased fivefold, going from 14,569 in 2022 to 76,178 in 2023 (+522%), according to the Institute of Migration.
Rising Chinese Crosses
According to data from the US government, in the first 11 months of 2023, more than 31,000 Chinese citizens were detained when trying to cross the border between Mexico and the US illegally, noted CNN en Español.
In fact, if this rising trend continues, the Chinese could become the group that crosses the border the fastest, according to an analysis of data provided by security forces.
These numbers reveal that Chinese citizens are leaving their country to join the enormous number of migrants who have overflowed the US southern border through illegal crossings. The majority request asylum upon crossing the border, CNN en Español said.
And during Xi Jinping’s mandate, the number of Chinese citizens who have requested political asylum in the US and other countries around the world increased from almost 25,000 in 2013 to more than 120,000 in 2023, according to UN data.
The land route to reach the north begins in Quito, Ecuador. The authorities of the South American country reported the entry of 13,000 Chinese citizens in 2022. However, in the first 11 months of 2023, they rose to 45,000. In Ecuador, Chinese people are expected by companies that offer to pick them up at the airport, take them to hostels run by Chinese and organize their trip to the north, for high prices.
Despite decades of rapid economic growth in China, life for the country’s citizens is becoming more difficult by the day.
“For ordinary people, surviving is really difficult. It’s very difficult to live. Don’t even think about making money because those (upper class) people exploit you,” said Zheng Shiqing, a 28-year-old Chinese man who arrived to Ecuador after making an aerial journey through several countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.
“There is no way out… unless your parents are civil servants or businessmen. But if you belong to the lower class, even if you get married and have children, you will follow the same path… it is painful just to think about it,” he says. “I wish I had never been born… living is so exhausting,” she said.
Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego, says it is “surprising that so many migrants undertake this dangerous journey to South America and the United States when the country (China) is politically very stable.”
And he adds that this “suggests that a significant segment of the population is in dire economic straits.”
Nicaragua makes it easier to get to the US
From the air gate of Managua, migrants go by land to Honduras and Guatemalawhere they pass without official payment, and then to Mexico and the United States, paying thousands of dollars to human traffickers or “coyotes.”
By commercial flight, a frequent route is to stopover in The Savioran important Central American air connection center, just like Panama.
How they did Costa Rica and Panama With Cubans connecting to Managua, El Salvador imposed an airport transit fee on citizens of Africa and India in October, in this case of $1,130.
The majority “are destined for Nicaragua,” said a spokesperson for the Salvadoran Immigration Directorate.
Colombian authorities recently noted that a majority of passengers on flights from Turkey were Africans in transit to San Salvador – with direct flights from Bogotá – to continue to Managua.
“It is a population (…) that intends to migrate” and “pays for tickets and other things to avoid going through Darién,” explained this week the Colombian vice chancellor Francisco Coy, in the face of a congestion of Africans at the Bogotá airport. where two children from Guinea were found alone, setting off more alarms.
For its part, the Nicaraguan government remains silent on this entire issue.
Manuel Orozco, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue -based in Washington-, assured that the Daniel Ortega’s government has facilitated “the business of a network of air services” so that migrants “can reach the border with Mexico and the United States faster,” using Nicaragua as a shortcut or “bridge.”
“The government hired private companies in Dubai in April to train civil aviation officials in handling immigration procedures for passengers on charter flights” and between June and November there were “more than 500” of these trips from various countries, he said.
Nicaragua “He took advantage of the opportunity to facilitate the passage of foreigners from India coming from Dubai on three occasions,” added Orozco, a Nicaraguan migration expert.
On December 21, an Airbus A340 of the Romanian company Legend Airlines, which was flying from Dubai to Nicaragua, was immobilized while making a stopover in Vatry, France due to a complaint of alleged human trafficking.
The plane with 303 Indian passengers that was held in France highlighted the new African and Asian migrant route through Central America, on the way to the United States, to avoid dangerous Panamanian jungle of El Darién.
Nicaragua, which considers Washington its “enemy”, has been a “springboard” for Cubans and Haitians, for whom since 2021 it has not required a visa: a monthly average of 50 charter flights traveled from Havana to Managua between January and October, and from Puerto Príncipe, those trips rose from 30 in August to 130 in October, according to Orozco.
“For Nicaragua The air route to Managua was conceived in a premeditated manner in the face of the opportunity to increase the weight of the immigration crisis in the United States and, in the process, capture income from the business” by charging visas, tourist permits and landing taxes, he added. .
Liliana Bakayoko, a lawyer for Legend Airlines, assured that Nicaragua approved the list of passengers before taking the flight and that they would receive their entry pass at the Managua airport.
Any foreigner who wants to travel to Nicaragua must previously request an entry permit. “Without Nicaraguan immigration authorities’ approval of the passenger list, the plane could not land in Managua or take off from Dubai,” he said.
Source: With information from AFP / CNN in Spanish
