They announced the realization of a new migrant caravan: they seek to reach CDMX

Hundreds of migrants who have been stranded for weeks or even months in the city of Tapachula, Chiapas, announced that they plan to leave by caravan on Friday, April 1, which - because of its proximity to Holy Week is called “Migrant's Way of the Cross” - is destined for Mexico City.

The migrants explained that, once in the capital of the country, they plan to require immigration documents because in the border area - they reported - they have not found attention from the federal authorities.

The foreigners met on Wednesday in a public square to define their exit because they had been waiting for many weeks for attention to their procedures and to be able to regularize themselves.

Diego Samalun, from Venezuela, told Efe that they are going to walk because there is no “other alternative” and in Tapachula they no longer feel loved.

Migrants are willing to walk as many days as necessary in order to leave Tapachula and regularize their immigration status in the country.

In order to leave this city, migrants have gone to the judiciary to file around 1,200 amparos so that the authorities of the National Institute of Migration (INM) do not deport them or arrest them while they advance through Mexican territory.

Foreigners indicated that they have been in a makeshift camp in a park for weeks and sleeping in tents.

The director of the Center for Human Dignification (CDH), activist Luis Rey García Villagrán, told the media that it is necessary for people to leave Tapachula because they are living in very poor conditions.

Although he recalled that there are risks in walking on the road and under “inclement weather”, especially with minors. However, he indicated that they will walk out of Tapachula early Friday and along the way they will add migrants from other towns in the state of Chiapas.

He assured that Tapachula remains the “zero point” of migration in America. “For many, their dreams begin or end here,” he stressed.

In this regard, he made a final appeal to the National Institute of Migration (INM) to attend to migrants and grant them visitor cards for humanitarian reasons so that they can pass through Mexico without so much difficulty.

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.

According to data from the Migration Policy Unit of the Ministry of the Interior, in 2021 alone, Mexico deported more than 114,000 foreigners.

While the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar) received a record 131,448 refugee applications in 2021. Of these petitioners, more than 51,000 are Haitians.

With information from EFE

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