As many as 5,000 migrants are marching from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas in the hope of reaching the northern border area with the United States.
Migrants from Central America, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti began the journey on Monday after growing frustrated with the long wait times the Mexican government took to process their refugee or exit visa applications at the main immigration processing center in the Chiapas town of Tapachula. near the border with Guatemala.
The Mexican National Migration Institute, which is in charge of approving or rejecting the applications, is supported with requests. Migrants normally wait weeks or months before their status is legalized, allowing them to work and move freely within the country.
The march would be the largest since June 2022, when 6,000 people, many from Venezuela, set out from Tapachula.
A caravan of 5,000 migrants left the southern Mexican border town of Tapachula on Monday to make their way to the northern border area opposite the United States.
A migrant pushes a stroller as he walks along the road in Tapachula, Mexico, next to a caravan of about 5,000 people from Central America, Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba in an attempt to reach the U.S. border
The migrants left Tapachula and traveled 15 kilometers to the town of Alvaro Obregón, where they slept Monday night and left early Tuesday morning hoping to walk about another 24 kilometers.
Single adults and family units were seen walking along the highway under the sun on Monday with police acting as escorts.
The group stopped traveling nearly ten miles and reached the municipality of Alvaro Obregón, where they camped overnight, according to Mexican-American activist Irineo Mújica, one of the caravan’s organizers.
They were on the road again at 5 a.m. Tuesday and planned to advance another 15 miles, Univision said.
Venezuelan Daniel González said he had been on the road for three months and has no plans to return due to the poor economic situation at home.
The latest caravan of about 5,000 would be the largest since 6,000 people, mostly Venezuelans, left Tapachula in June 2022.
Oscar Gutiérrez also left Venezuela with his wife and two daughters and hopes President Joe Biden’s administration will allow them to resettle there.
“In Venezuela, things are very tough, we cannot live with the money we get, it is not enough for us, and that is why we are going to the United States,” he said.
“We’ll keep going,” he said. “Nobody helps us in Tapachula.”
Leonel Olveras, a native of Honduras, said: ‘They don’t hand out papers here. They ask us to wait for months. It’s too long.’
A migrant family joined a caravan of migrants heading to the United States from Tapachula, Mexico
A migrant girl sleeps while other caravan members rest after a long day of travel
Migrants are tired of waiting weeks or months for their refugee or visa applications to be approved by Mexican immigration authorities
Irineo Mújica, who has been at the forefront of mass migration issues in the past, called for transit visas that would allow migrants to cross Mexico on their way to the U.S. border.
Some migrants in Tapachula had expressed interest in working for the government and helping with recovery efforts in the resort town of Acapulco, which was ravaged by Hurricane Otis last week.
“With actions like this we are trying to save lives,” Mújica said. “They (Mexican authorities) ignored the problem and left the migrants stranded.”
The latest caravan comes at a time when President Biden is under intense pressure to close the flow of undocumented immigrants at the United States’ southwestern border.
US Customs Border and Protection recorded 269,735 encounters along the southern border region in September, the highest number since December 2022, when 252,315 interdictions were recorded.
In total, CBP reported 2,475,669 interdiction encounters in fiscal year 2023 (October 2022 to September 2022), surpassing the previous fiscal year when 2,378,944 encounters were recorded.
“In response to the high number of encounters across the southwest border in September, CBP has increased resources and personnel,” CBP Acting Commissioner Troy A. Miller said in an Oct. 21 statement. “We are in ongoing discussions with domestic and foreign partners to address historic hemispheric migration, including large migrant groups traveling on freight trains, and to enforce consequences, including by preparing for direct repatriations to Venezuela. ‘