Government of Honduras announces free passage to flows of irregular migrants

The Government of Honduras announced on Thursday that it will not impose administrative sanctions on the flows of foreign migrants entering the country, who will also be granted a special permit to remain in the national territory for up to ten days.

In a statement, the National Migration Institute (INM) indicated that the measures have been taken “in view of the non-approval of the extension of the immigration amnesty in force until December 31 of this year,” for which it blamed the deputies of the opposition National Party “and their allies in the National Congress”, in a tacit allusion to other opposition groups.

#Urgent | INM Statement 036-23#Migration #MigrationAmnesty #Honduras 🇭🇳 pic.twitter.com/ikNe2TgBsd

— National Migration Institute HN (@MigracionHND) December 28, 2023

The INM pointed out that in compliance with the mandate of the Honduran president, Xiomara Castro, to apply a humanist immigration policy, which recognizes migration as a human right, Four Interior Control offices have also been set up to serve migrants in the departments of El Paraíso, in the east of the country, and Choluteca, in the south.

These are the El Pescadero offices and the Francisco Paz Migrant Assistance Center (CAMI), in the municipality of Danlí, and the Trojes immigration office, all in El Paraíso, and the CAMI in the city of Choluteca, department of same name.

Immigration amnesty expires December 31

The measure by the Honduran Executive is due to the fact that a migration amnesty expires on December 31 so that foreigners in transit through the country do not pay a taxwhich establishes the current regulatory framework, whose extension has not been approved by Parliament, which has not held sessions for four months due to differences and lack of consensus between the different benches to elect the new attorney general and deputy prosecutor.

According to the INM, The new Government ordinance is due to “humanitarian reasons” as of January 1, 2024.

The same institution also called on Parliament so that in the new legislature that will begin on January 25, 2024, priority be given to the approval of “a new legal framework that includes the protection and respect for “the human rights of migrants in mixed migratory flows, in accordance with the new realities.”

In 2023 more than 500,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have crossed Honduran territory with the aim of reaching the United States.

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