Photo: Juan Manuel Blanco / EFE
For: EFE Updated 16 Apr 2022, 18: 16 pm EDT
TAPACHULA, Mexico – Hundreds of migrants who have been trapped for months in the city of Tapachula, in the state of Chiapas, and left in a caravan, have stopped their journey to Mexico City after agreeing with the authorities the regularization of their requests for next Monday.
This third caravan called “Migrant Way of the Cross” is made up of some 800 migrants from countries such as Venezuela, Haiti and other Central American and African nations, and left walking peacefully.
The migrants left the city of Tapachula around seven in the morning and took the coastal highway that leads to the country’s capital. The undocumented immigrants walked on the right lane carrying cardboard and tarps alluding to the “Migrant Stations of the Cross”.
Leonel Mejía, a migrant from Venezuela, said that he left with this caravan in order to obtain documents that legalize his stay in Mexico, since they have been waiting several days for these procedures to travel to the northern border.
“We are not here to do harm, we just want let us move forward, because migration is throwing us (telling) many lies, because they don’t give us permission and we can no longer be in Tapachula”, he explained.
Alexander Sola, another of the migrants who make up this caravan, indicated that it does not matter how far they have to walk, since they intend to obtain their papers in order to reach their destination, which is the United States.
“We ask that you not detain us because the resources to cross into the United States are running out,” he said.
The TR he said, it’s not difficult, he said, although it is quite hard, so the only thing they ask for “is to let them walk through Mexico.”
Dialogue with authorities
Migrants walked about eight kilometers to the first migratory checkpoint in the Ejido de Viva México, where buses and vans from the National Migration Institute (INM) were waiting for them to talk with them.
Hugo Salvador Cuellar, deputy delegate of the INM, spoke with a commission of 10 foreigners where they agreed that the members of the caravan would get on buses to be taken to the Comprehensive Attention Center for Border Transit (Caitf), from Huixtla, where next Monday they will carry out their immigration procedures.
Luis Rey García Villagrán, director of the Center for Human Dignity (CDH), delivered a copy of the lists of migrants to the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) and the INM so that this Monday they can be assisted with their regularization migratory in the country and can advance to the northern border.
Federal authorities made available near 10 vehicles to transport the group to the municipality of Huixtla, where it will remain this Saturday and Sunday.
Yamila Suárez, a migrant from Venezuela, confirmed that the authorities committed to to serve them on Monday, so they decided to stop walking. “We are grateful that they have taken care of us and we hope that we all arrive at the same place (Huixtla) and do not disperse us,” he said.
Salvador Cuellar affirmed that the migrants will be attended to regularize them and giving priority to dialogue with the authorities.
This is the third group of migrants who leave in a massive way from Tapachula and that they have managed to obtain agreements with the authorities.
Last April 1 The second caravan left walking with some 500 migrants, who managed to advance some 000 kilometers to the community of Álvaro Obregón, where they also agreed to board INM vans to regularize hundreds of foreigners.
Another first contingent of some 500 people came out in January past and forward ones 30 kilometers under pressure from the authorities.
The region is experiencing a record flow of migrants to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office detected more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants on the border with Mexico in the fiscal year 2021, which ended on 30 of September.
Mexico deported more than 114, foreigners in 2021, according to data from the Migration Policy Unit of the country’s Ministry of the Interior.
In addition, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar) received a record of 131,448 refugee applications in 2021. Of these petitioners, more than 16, are Haitians.
By Juan Manuel Blanco
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