Members of the Mexican National Guard play with a stray dog as a migrant caravan crosses Tapachula, Mexico, near the border with Guatemala, on June 6, 2022 (Alejandro Segara / New York Times)
Thousands of migrants left southern Mexico last week in one of the largest caravans seeking to reach the United States in recent years. The mass movement coincided with a recent meeting in Los Angeles of Western Hemisphere leaders, where migration was a key focus.
Although migrant caravans have become commonplace and are usually broken by authorities long before they reach the southern border of the United States, the latest march of some 6,000 people on Mexican highways has attracted considerable international attention.
Many of the migrants come from Venezuela and have already traveled hundreds of miles through the jungle and across many borders before arriving in Mexico. Once in Mexico, the migrant usually has to stay in the southern city of Tapachula until Mexican authorities issue a humanitarian visa to travel further, a process that can take months.
Sign up for The Morning Newsletter
“Tapachula has become a huge prison for migrants,” said Luis Garcia Villagran, a spokesman for the caravan. “Mexican authorities have a knot, a bureaucratic fence, a bureaucratic wall, apparently under pressure from the United States.
Instead of moving to Tapachula, some migrants are either paying traffickers, many of whom have links to organized crime, or bribing immigration officials to speed up the process, Garcia said in a telephone interview.
Others are trying to circumvent the Mexican visa process and join groups heading north, he said, believing their large numbers would make it difficult for Mexican authorities to halt progress.
Natalia Gomez Quintero, a spokeswoman for Mexico’s National Migration Institute, said efforts were being made to provide migrants with legal documents in Tapachula.
“A good part of those who make up the caravan already have documentation,” she said.
However, the Mexican National Guard is often sent to stop the flow of migrants to the north.
Stories of mistreatment of migrants are widespread. A report by Human Rights Watch released last week found that “migrants and asylum seekers entering Mexico across its southern border face abuse and are struggling to obtain protection or legal status.”
The story continues
Mexico arrested more than 300,000 migrants last year, the highest number in history, according to Human Rights Watch, while more than 130,000 people have applied for asylum in the country. Such figures have “overwhelmed” Mexico’s asylum system, the report said.
The presence of many Venezuelans in the caravan follows a change in Mexico’s policy toward migrants from the South American nation, which has been engulfed in political and economic crises. Since January, Venezuelans have needed visas to enter Mexico, a rule many are trying to circumvent by crossing large groups at land borders instead of flying.
Russell Martinez pushes a shopping cart with her son and other family members. After leaving Venezuela years ago, the family lived in Colombia, home to about 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants. But in Colombia, she said, they have found a rough reception and little work.
“We lived in an area with a lot of crime; they threatened us that we had to leave, “Martinez said. “Otherwise they would have burned down the house.”
Many Venezuelans seeking a better existence have taken a difficult path overland, including walking across the Darien Abyss, an insidious, roadless part of the jungles of eastern Panama and northwestern Colombia. In the first five months of the year, more than 32,000 migrants, including more than 16,000 Venezuelans, crossed, according to Panama’s National Migration Service.
Eduardo Colmenares Perez, a Venezuelan migrant who crossed the abyss with his son and pregnant wife, said the bandits had stolen all their belongings. “They left us without money, without food, without clothes, without anything.”
Young men are many of those in the caravan, but there are also many families with children. About 3,000 minors traveled in the group, according to the UN Children’s Fund. In a park in the town of Alvaro Obregon, a child was playing while other young people were singing.
Most of those in the caravan are poor and are hoping for better opportunities in the United States. But some are also fleeing violence and persecution, including a group of LGBTQ migrants who described the discrimination they face in Venezuela and on the roads.
Michael Tejada, Yader Rodriguez and Jesus Ranchel got together during the break in the caravan trip. “We are not accepted in Venezuela and the neighborhoods of Caracas,” Rodriguez said. “We have to suppress ourselves, pretend to be something we are not.”
Others said they faced persecution for being outsiders. Juliette Mora and her family left Venezuela and moved to Colombia and later to Peru. But she said they were forced to leave because of xenophobia. Mora was sitting under a makeshift tent in Alvaro Obregon.
Rosellis Gettierez and Maria Gomez are Venezuelans who previously lived in Colombia but left after saying they were attacked for holding hands on a street in Bogotá.
“We decided to go through the jungle. It was quite difficult, “said Gutierrez.” I’m quite traumatized by everything I’ve been through in the jungle, everything we’ve been through. But thank God, I’m here and I’m hoping for something better.
Some migrants decided to leave the caravan after Mexican immigration officials in the town of Whistle in the state of Chiapas gave them temporary permits, allowing them to cross the country freely for 30 days, according to Garcia, a spokesman for the caravan. Other migrants decided to leave the caravan completely, exhausted by the transition, which usually means walking miles every day, often in bright sunlight or heavy rains.
Mexico is fraught with danger, especially from organized crime groups known to abduct migrants and hold them for ransom, often paid by relatives in the United States. The caravan offers some cash security, but Mexican authorities are known to disperse the caravans by force.
Venezuelan migrants stood on the roof of an immigration detention center in Tapachula after an uprising that migrants said was caused by poor sanitation, food shortages, overcrowding and delays in migration and asylum processing.
“We are not criminals,” said one migrant, Valentina Alfonso. She said her uncle had been detained by Mexican authorities for several days. “We are professionals. We have our careers, our training, “said Alfonso. “It’s inhuman.”
At temperatures that can reach 100 degrees, the caravan usually departs long before dawn. A Venezuelan migrant pushed another migrant into a wheelchair while the caravan was traveling at night.
Colmenares, who was in Mexico for five days after crossing the Darien Abyss, often had to rely on the generosity of his fellow migrants for food.
“I feel angry, impotent because I had to leave my country,” he said.
A US official said the Department of Homeland Security was monitoring the caravan’s progress, but suggested that migrants traveling on foot often failed to reach the border.
Despite the difficulties, Colmenares said he was only thinking about the way forward. “What motivates me to keep going is to look for my American dream,” he said. “To give my son a better future.”
© 2022 The New York Times Company
Add Comment