Some 5,000 migrants from countries of center y South America marched for the second consecutive day in Tapachula, bordering Guatemalaand threatened with the departure of a new caravan next week if the authorities do not provide them with immigration documents.
The migrants left the center of Tapachula to the Siglo XXI immigration station to ask the authorities of the Migration’s national institute (INM) to grant them documents to be able to travel through the country, reach the northern border and advance towards the United States.
The group made up mostly of people from VenezuelaAngola, Haiti, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua spread out a huge banner on which they wrote “Migrants with God.”
The contingent arrived at immigration office peacefully where they were treated by a commission of agents of the INMwho asked the migrants to form a group of five people to give them information and assist them.
Anti-riot police were already waiting for this group of people inside the building, where an officer in charge of security He said that negotiations would take place with the immigration staff.
“We do not want for any reason to have violence and we do not want to apply the public force with you, so I beg you to act in accordance with the law, ”said the officer to try to maintain order among the migrants.
A migrant from Venezuela, Luvia Guel, who arrived a month and a half ago to Tapachularegretted that government agencies are slow in their migration processes.
“We want you to help us so that let us move onWe don’t want to harm your country, we don’t want to stay in Tapachula,” he said.
Su compatriotJonathan Pichardo, said that they have done all the pertinent procedures, but the date for their visas has not yet come out.
The authorities asked the migrants to formalize their petition to the INM authorities, but they said that the response will take time that way and they can no longer wait a week or two.
“This issue must be resolved no later than this Monday, ideally it should be resolved before, because we are already a group of 7,000 people, they say that there is attention in 100 windows but these do not solve“, explained Luis Rey García Villagrán, director of the NGO Center for Human Dignification (CDH), after the meeting.
In addition, he said that the migrants are going to wait for the response of the authoritiesbut warned that if they do not comply with what was promised next Tuesday they will start the eighth caravan so far this year.
The region is experiencing a record migratory flow to USAwhose Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office detected more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants on the border with Mexico in fiscal year 2021, which ended on September 30.
Meanwhile, Mexico deported more than 114,000 foreigners in 2021, according to data from the Migration Policy Unit of the Ministry of the Interior.
While in fiscal year 2022, which started on October 1, 2021, the CBP has counted more than 1 million intercepted migrants in the frontera American South.
With information from EFE