The Mexican government peacefully disabled the caravan of more than 800 migrants, including Cubans, who left the city of Tapachula, south of Chiapas, for the country’s capital on Saturday morning.
The third major caravan of the year, made up of Venezuelans, Cubans and Central Americans, left the city bordering Guatemala to demand expedited immigration procedures and documents that will allow them to travel from the Mexican nation to the United States border Conditions.
However, when they arrived at the first checkpoint, authorities had several buses waiting for them and suggested taking them to a community 40 kilometers north of Tapachula, where they will reportedly process their immigration permits on Monday.
Hugo Cuéllar, representative of the National Institute for Migration (INM) in the region, assured the undocumented immigrants that “they will have the support to legalize them”, for which they voluntarily accepted the transfer. and despite complaints that the government agency is issuing invalid documentsaccording to the news portal The Mexican newspaper.
Whether the promise comes true or not, the immediate effect of The INM initiative should prevent migrants from walking on the highwaymarked the medium.
The migrants say they feel trapped at the Tapachula border because of the slow processing of their asylum applications, while at the same time being unable to find work to earn a living. They also denounce corruption that delays the preparation and delivery of documents.
Although INM last year began busing migrants to other states to process their immigration permits and offered transport to disable the caravans, several human rights organizations have denounced the lack of transparency in these processes.
The day before, Luis García Villagrán, head of the Human Dignity Center for Human Rights, said the migrants were upset by the delays in the procedures and the sudden proposal to edit the documents on Monday: “Why didn’t they offer it sooner?” asked .
Another similar caravan left Tapachula on April 1, but the National Guard and the National Migration Institute dismantled the protest movement four days later, also with the promise of papers.
However, dozens of travelers have reported that the INM gave them invalid documents. At least 38 migrants of various nationalities have been returned to Mexico’s southern border despite being issued with immigration documents by the country’s immigration authorities, they said.
These migrants had already successfully processed Visitor Cards for Humanitarian Reasons (TVRH), Multiple Migratory Forms (FMM) and even refugee applications, but they affirm that “the authorities are detaining them at the final checkpoint in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and they are forwarding them Tabasco or San Luis Potosí back.”
Thousands of Cubans are currently traveling through Mexico. Irregular entry of migrants from the island via the United States’ southern border hit a tally in March more than 32 thousand peoplethat has left the Biden administration in the dilemma of dealing with a migration avalanche the size of the Mariel boat lift of 1980.
Although the Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has not yet released official statistics on immigrant arrivals over the past month, The Washington Post newspaper announced that the number of Cubans has exceeded 32,000, double the 16,550 who registered at Mexican border crossings in February.