MEXICO.- Brian didn’t know what he wanted to do with his future as a migrant. After fleeing Honduras due to insecurity, he needed time to think and, therefore, rent a space to survive on the border of Tapucha, in southern Mexicowhere he realized that in this country the leasing conditions corner the undocumented as much or more… than in Florida!
“It happens very often that in Mexico they agree to rent and then there are many abuses and they are thrown out on the streets under any pretext”, comments Irineo Mújica, an activist with the organization Reporters Without Borders, who has closely followed the issue.
Brian rented a room in Tapachula for a month. She paid 2,000 pesos (about $100) in advance with the idea that it was just for him, but little by little the owner began to rent the same room to other people. At the end of the month there were five strangers together.
Even under these conditions, he rented again for another month because nobody else wanted to do it without documents or guarantees.
The rental requirements in Mexico considered in the Mexican laws impossible to achieve for an undocumented immigrant: a tenant must have a temporary residence, a guarantee of real estate value, generally the property must be in the same state of the republic where you want to rent and two personal references.
Brian obviously didn’t have any of it and that’s why he got kicked out of the house a few days after he paid. They threw their things out the window, a backpack, a pair of shoes and a sweatshirt. “If you don’t leave, we’ll call the police,” the landlords threatened.
“Mexico is tearing its hair out because of what is happening in Florida, but here it is worse,” Mujica describes.
“They are not going after tenants but the same policies prevent them from not being able to rent, in addition to the racist attitudes of the tenants themselves.”
The activist says that, depending on the geographical area of Mexico, if those who want to rent are of African descent (Haitians) they do not receive them because they believe that they have nowhere to drop dead; instead, if they see them as white, they have a better chance of being able to rent, as happens with some Cubans and Venezuelans.
What happens in Florida It is different. According to lawyers, The new 1718 law promoted by Republican Ron DeSantis left a legal loophole that leaves landlords with uncertainty: they do not understand if they commit major crimes if they rent their spaces to an immigrant and everything is subject to the interpretation of the authorities.
housing pilgrims
Jorge Madrid never intended to reach the United States. His migration was political, when it was impossible to continue organizing activities against Salvador Nasralla and other officials. “I had to go,” he admits.
Madrid opposed the expulsion of Manuel Zelaya and was part of the social movement against corruption, the dispossession of territories and the denunciation of the ties of rulers against drug trafficking.
Getting away from those activities gave him peace of mind in Mexico, but here another martyrdom began: finding a place to live.
The first place where it was established was in Jalisco. In Guadalajara there were other Honduran migrants who had contacts with the cultural world that he sought. With support of this type, he found a “service room” as the spaces of a few square meters on the roof are known.
Was lucky. So he managed to have a home for at least a year until the pandemic hit and the restaurant where he worked closed and he moved in with a friend who had a job on a pig farm in the Jalisco Highlands. But being far from the cities was not his thing and that is why he returned to Guadalajara, where things continued the same: without work.
“At some point I thought about going back to Honduras, but they told me that there could be more opportunities in Mexico City,” he details.
Jorge Madrid arrived in the Mexican capital with more expectations than fear of the covid. He settled in the Casa Tochán shelter, one of the few refuges for migrants in CDMX, and he stayed there for a while.
minimal options
Gabriela Hernández, director of Casa Tochán acknowledges that for the average undocumented migrant it is “practically impossible” to aspire to an apartment in the city. Even more so in these times of gentrification due to the move of “digital nomads”, mainly Americans, who have increased housing costs.
Here a space in the central neighborhoods can cost between 1,200 and 4,000 dollarsif there is availability.
“The undocumented work as waiters, bricklayers or, if they know English, in the call centers but they don’t have enough more than for food and, if anything, a room on the roof but in the neighborhoods on the periphery, in the State of Mexico, where It is very insecure”, Hernández details.
In recent years, the shelter’s representatives have sought to “conquer” landlords who accept Casa Tochán as guarantees that the migrants will pay their rents. They seek that the tenants surrounding the shelter have confidence and thus provide alternatives to those who require it.
Jorge Madrid was a volunteer at Casa Tochán and later rented an apartment in the Guerrero neighborhood when he achieved legal refugee status and began working at the consulate of his country. He was happy, but his contract was not renewed after one year.
His economic condition forced him to look to other, more loving lands: next to his Chihuahuan girlfriend with whom he currently lives in the northern state.
“If in Florida they put restrictions here it is not so easy to survive, it is not impossible, but they have to fight a lot”recognizes Gabriela Hernández.
Irineo Mújica, from the organization Sin Fronteras, says that the issue of housing is just one of the aspects by which Mexico is even more hostile than Florida.
“Here it is prohibited and punishable to pick up migrants on public transport, in Tapachula and in Oaxaca they do not take migrants up if they go from one route to another in the municipalities and there are many fines, I really do not know why there is this double discourse ”.
Keep reading:
– The prohibitions that are transforming Florida into an ultra-conservative stronghold in the US.
– Republicans who supported DeSantis’ immigration law seek to stop the departure of hundreds of immigrants from Florida
– Texas attorney considering criminal investigation against DeSantis for sending immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard