2023-07-23 14:31:03
The flow of Venezuelan migrants who arrive at the southern border of Mexico, with the aim of reaching the United States, increased by 150% in 2022, a percentage that has been sustained in the last three years, said this Saturday the leader of a pro-migrant organization in the state of Chiapas, southeastern Mexico.
The director of the Center for Human Dignification (CDH), Luis Rey García Villagrán, recalled that Venezuelan migrants began to arrive in Mexico in 2017 and from that year their arrival in Mexican territory increased and has been sustained.
“The Venezuelan population is atypical in the country, thousands have been surviving; The entire Mexican geography is full of Venezuelan migrants who are begging in the streets and among them many women are dedicating themselves to sex service,” the Mexican activist told EFE.
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He recalled that before the number of Venezuelans grew, migrants from Central American countries occupied the first places, but things have changed in recent years and said that unofficially it is estimated that some 20,000 Venezuelans have arrived in Mexico in the first quarter of 2023, four times more than in the same period last year.
While on July 11, the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees (Comar) of the Ministry of the Interior (Interior) reported that some 3,511 Venezuelan migrants requested refuge in that country during the first semester of 2023, being the fourth nationality with the highest requirements of this type behind people from Haiti (29,532), Honduras (18,210) and Cuba (5,034).
That day, the Comar reported that it registered 74,646 refugee applications in the first half of 2023 and after these numbers it expects the unprecedented figure of 150,000 cases at the end of the year.
“The projection is that there could be 150,000 (refugee requests), which would significantly exceed the number so large that we had in 2021 (129,769 requests, a previous record),” admitted a few days ago the general coordinator of Comar, Andrés Ramírez, in an interview with EFE.
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Meanwhile, the director of the Todo por Ellos shelter, Lorenza Obdulia Reyes, reported that between 150 and 100 Venezuelan migrants arrive at the shelter every day who cross from Guatemala to the city of Tapachula, Chiapas, who stay for a single day and leave with the intention of reaching the northern border.
Precisely, on the banks of the Suchiate River, the natural border that divides Mexico and Guatemala, some 1,000 Venezuelan migrants who are stranded on the southern border of Mexico have set up a camp waiting for the Mexican government to address their immigration process and allow them to advance to the United States.
“The countries of Central America are full of migrants, from Cuba, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela,” Venezuelan migrant Anderson Peralta told EFE, who recounted that leaving his country and starting this journey to the United States is “very tough because you have to raise about $2,000 per person to get to the northern border of Mexico, not including lodging.”
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