Photo: Juan Manuel Blanco / EFE
By: EFE Published Sep 24, 2023, 8:23 pm EDT
Activists and religious held a demonstration this Sunday procession on the southern border to ask for the support of the Mexican Governmentwith papers that allow them to travel regularly through the country to the northern border, in search of the “American dream.”
This, as part of the World Day of Refugees and Migrants, which took place in the midst of a new wave of migration, which anticipates a new record of asylum applications and a humanitarian crisis.
The migrants, most of whom are in Mexico irregularly, They walked through the main streets of Tapachula with banners, flags, while performing prayers to ask the Mexican Government to assist them and grant them documents to leave Tapachula.
Father César Augusto Cañaveral Pérez, coordinator of the pastoral dimension of human mobility in the Diocese of Tapachula, said that the largest migratory flow is from Cuba, followed by Venezuela, Central America, as well as Mexicans who try to go to the United States.
“What Tapachula is experiencing is a disorderly migration because the migratory flows or exoduses are becoming more complex and more difficult to reach the United States every day,” he shared with EFE.
Economic crisis
This procession was joined by migrant Carlos Aguilera, from Honduras, who left his country due to the economic crisis and which led his business to bankruptcy until he sold nothing, prompting him to undertake his journey to the United States.
“Please help us, we are crossing such a difficult path in another country. We are in poverty, many bother us. The drivers charge us a lot. We ask for permission because they are not giving permission, we want to get to the other side,” he said.
The Mexican priest also He criticized that Mexican citizens are taking advantage of this situationgenerating business in the collection of hotels, homes, tickets, leaving them important economic benefits.
Another migrant originally from Guatemala, Arcelis Solís de Tejeda, who attended this procession and mass for refugee migrants, reported that she fled Guatemala, because she has been extorted and threatened with death.
“We don’t come because we want to go for a walk, I was a street vendor, selling tamales, paches (traditional Guatemalan dish) and typical food. The truth is they don’t let us work in Guatemala, they ask us for extortion, I think it’s unfair because we are working honestly,” she said.
During the mass, the woman asked for her family, explaining that she cannot return to Guatemala and what they need is to advance to the United States or remain on the northern border to be able to work.
The parish priest of Tapachula, He regretted that the Mexican authorities tear up the few or only documents that foreigners who enter the country have.preventing them from taking a bus, which also pushes hundreds of migrants to walk along the migratory route to advance towards the northern border, amid risks such as organized crime.
Cañaveral explained that Tapachula is a small city that does not have the strength to be able to face this migratory phenomenon and recognized that the migratory crisis is already aggravated and requires concrete responses from the national, state and municipal governments.
Crime, violence, human trafficking and climate situations and the lack of human rights and the migration of children who are walking, are some of the problems experienced by migration that reaches the southern border.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), insecurity, violence and socioeconomic conditions are the main factors that influence thousands of migrants leaving their countries to cross Mexico and try to reach the United States.
He has also pointed out that the variety of nationalities of migrants crossing the country is increasing because more people are leaving their countries after the Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused a new wave of migration in the region.
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