NG elements evicted migrants who broke into the border port of Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas

The protests of migrants who have been stranded in Chiapas for months continue to grow.

On Monday, elements of the National Guard (NG) evicted some 400 migrants who entered the premises of the border port of Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas, located on the border between Mexico and Guatemala, to demand that they be given the documents that regularize their situation.

Migrants, mostly Central American as well as from Cuba and Venezuela, arrived in search of their papers at the crossroads between countries and, to press, gathered at the pedestrian crossing and attempted to enter by force, but were withdrawn by National Guard agents.

According to accounts, a group of migrants “were calm” but many others “wanted to enter by force and that was when the confrontation took place.”

The migrants arrived in search of humanitarian visas after a group of people, who had been there since last Friday, were receiving attention from the authorities.

Because of this resolution, hundreds of foreigners are now moving to Ciudad Hidalgo, in search of completing their immigration procedures, since the southern migration offices are saturated with foreigners seeking to be attended by the staff of the National Institute of Migration (INM).

This is the second protest that takes place in less than 72 hours in the border area between Mexico and Guatemala, so the Mexican authorities activated operations to deter migrants.

On Saturday, a group of migrants from Venezuela and Cuba protested at the pedestrian crossing from Mexico to Guatemala to demand that the INM grant them humanitarian visas.

The foreigners arrived in Ciudad Hidalgo, after a riot in Tapachula, where they denounced that there is chaos due to the saturation of migrants from Haiti and Africa.

The demonstration occurred while President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was on a tour of Chiapas, where on Friday he faced protests from dozens of migrants who sewed their mouths for the treatment they receive from the INM.

In recent weeks, there have been several protests in Tapachula calling for the streamlining of immigration documents.

In some of these marches there have been clashes with the National Guard and, at least on one occasion, a group of migrants of Haitian and African origin forcibly broke into the INM headquarters.

The region is experiencing a record flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) detected more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants on the Mexican border in fiscal year 2021, which ended September 30.

Mexico deported more than 114,000 foreigners in 2021, according to data from the country's Ministry of the Interior.

Mexican authorities have intercepted 73,034 foreigners with an irregular stay in the national territory between January 1 and March 8 of this year, as recently reported by the INM.

Meanwhile, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar) received a record 131,448 refugee applications in 2021.

Last Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the dismantling of a transnational human trafficking organization operating on the country's southern border, an action that was achieved thanks to “broad bilateral cooperation” between US and Mexican authorities.

With information from EFE

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