Migrants leave southern Mexico on foot for the United States. Photo: Reuters
Thousands of undocumented migrants, between 11,000 and 15,000, left the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on Monday with the intention of reaching the United States, where began on Summit of the Americas with immigration on the agenda.
An AFP photographer and videographer noticed that the trailer consists of thousands of peopleeven if they didn’t get it an official number
“We tell the leaders of the countries that meet today (for this Friday) at the Summit of the Americas, that migrant women and children, migrant families, are not bargaining chips, ideological and political interests”, explained Luis García, of the Human Dignification NGO, which accompanies emigrants.
“We walk for our freedom, because we have the right to migrate“, He added.
The boys advance on a wagon in the middle of the caravan. Photo: Reuters
Under persistent rain, undocumented immigrants began their march to the United States, a journey of more than 3,000km.
Omar Herrera, a Venezuelan emigrant, said he quit his job at a university in that country due to salary “not enough for nothing” and now he is willing to go on grueling days of walking in search of a better future.
“Without sacrifice there is no victory,” he added.
The migrant caravans that crossed Mexico in 2018 and 2019 caused severe tensions with the United States, then ruled by Republican Donald Trump.
Since then, Mexico tightened its controls on the southern border and in 2021, 307,679 undocumented migrants were detained.
Under the rain. Photo: Reuters
the biggest of the year
This caravan, made up mainly of Central Americans, Venezuelans and Caribbean people, is the largest to have formed this year. In recent months and also during 2021, there has been a continuous stream of groups that have left Tapachula, on the border with Guatemala, where migrants do not stop accumulating.
Most complain the slowness of the procedures for seeking refuge and having to spend months stuck in a city where they live poor and have no work.
The migrants have decided to march due to the slowness of the procedures to ask for refuge. Photo: Reuters
Although some groups have been forcibly dissolved, the Mexican authorities have decided to dissolve them in recent months. offering them buses and the possibility of regularizing their situation in other states to decongest the south.
The Mexican Refugee Aid Commission, the official petitioning body, beat last year all your records getting more than 130,000 requeststriple in 2020 when they just exceeded 40,000.
So far in 2022, according to their figures, Almost 50,000 applications have already been received20% more than in the same period last year.
tired of waiting
This is the biggest march so far this year. Photo: Reuters
Foreigners have decided to head north due to the long waiting times in the regularization procedures in front of the offices of the National Institute for Migration and the Mexican Refugee Assistance Commission.
Besides, it is a form of protest when the Summit of the Americas begins to make visible the migration crisis facing the continent.
It is serious the seventh caravan that this year tries to leave Tapachula, a city on the border with Guatemala that activists and organizations have called a prison ” because also the migrants who have obtained some documents do not allow them to advance to other states because when they try they are arrested and sent back to the southern border.
With children in their arms. Photo: AP
The National Institute of Migration and the National Guard, for their part, have deployed an operation on the Chiapas coastal route to dissuade foreigners from trying to leave the region on foot.
Migrants from Honduras, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala top the list of petitions.
AFP and AP
ap
Source: Clarin
