Photo: Juan Manuel Blanco / EFE
By: EFE Updated 09 Sea 2022, 002: pm EST
TAPACHULA, Mexico – Hundreds of migrants, mostly Africans and Haitians, forced their way into the the headquarters of the National Migration Institute (INM) in the municipality of Tapachula in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas.
The protest, added to others that have taken place in recent days, ended with hundreds of foreigners protesting at the doors of the INM and with dozens of them breaking into the building.
Shouting “get out, get out” and “get in line”, a group of migrants of Latin American origin asked the Africans and Haitians to join removed from the front door, but many of them ignored the request.
Given the existing tension, the authorities began to let in families who were queuing, but Haitians and Africans they forced their way in amid shoves, shouts and blows.
After several hours of lack of control and chaos inside and outside the INM headquarters, most of the migrants were contained by migration agents and elements of the National Guard who were inside.
However, a small group of Haitian migrants still remains inside the building.
This protest occurred prior to the arrival in Tapachula of the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to address the immigration issue.
On signal of protest, the migrants took advantage of the situation to ask for the migratory procedures that will allow them to travel freely through the country to be speeded up.
Lesli García , a migrant from Venezuela, indicated that the migration authorities only tell them to come back the next day and to stand in line, without being able to resolve the paperwork for their visas for humanitarian reasons.
They ask to expedite appointments
In addition, a group of migrants carrying 19 days in an improvised camp in a park in Tapachula, border town with Guatemala, also protested this Wednesday outside the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar).
The foreigners, mostly from Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras and El Salvador, asked the Comar delegate in Chiapas, Alma Delia Cruz Márquez, to provide a solution to their requests.
Migratory wave in the region
In the last weeks There have been several protests in Tapachula to request the speeding up of immigration documents. In some of these marches there have even been There have been clashes with the National Guard.
The region is experiencing a record flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office detected more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants at the border with Mexico in the fiscal year 1200, which ended on 30 of September.
Mexico deported more than 114,000 foreigners in 2021, according to data from the country’s Ministry of the Interior.
Meanwhile, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar) received a record of 131,131 refugee applications in 2021.
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