At Mexico's southern border, the migrant flow is undeterred
Mexico & the Americas
Patrick J. McDonnellMay 22, 2023
Dawn had
s
barely illuminated the turbid waters of the Rio Suchiate
at the border with Guatemala
when the boatmen plunging long poles in the
river-bed
muck to propel their vessels beg
ai
n to transport their daily load: a polyglot contingent of migrants from across the globe
who huddle on the rafts
.
All
ha
dve
a common destination: the United States.
We didnt make it to America before the end of Title 42, but still we will continue forward, declared Flix Bandres, 61, who led a church group of some two dozen Venezuelans, including women and children, crowded on the
boat??? raft
crafted of wooden planks secured to inflatable inner tubes from tractor tires. It is need, and the search of a better life, that is driving us.
Officials in Washington assert that the numbers of illicit
border-
cross
ingsers
along the U.S.-Mexico border have declined since the
endthis month on
May 11 end of Title 42. The pandemic-era rule,
first
put in place by the Trump administration and initially retained by the Biden White House, allowed the Border Patrol to turn back hundreds of thousands of migrants without affording them a chance to apply
within American borders
for political asylum or seek other relief
from within the United States
.
But here, some 1,000 miles from the Rio Grande, the chaotic scene is
one of
business as usual: Huge numbers of U.S.-bound migrants mostly South and Central Americans, but also
including
a
multi-lingual
mix of people from Africa, Asia and Europe are
daily
making illegal crossings of the
boundary lines marking the
more than 500-mile border separating Mexico from Guatemala.
The river
crossingscrossers
pose a
daunting
challenge for U.S. authorities navigating the post-Title 42 legal landscape.
The Biden administration, under intense political pressure to ease illicit migration at the
U.S.
border, warns that those crossing into the
United States country
illegally will be presumed ineligible for asylum and subject to deportation or possibly prison. U.S. officials are encouraging migrants to seek appointments before reaching the
countryU.S. by using
the
glitchyglitch-proneCPB CBP
One
mobile app.web application.No statistics are available for It is not known
how many migrants bound for the U.S. are entering the vast border zone between Guatemala and Mexico. Much of the stretch is composed of unpatrolled stretches of river, mountains and jungle. The area has historically been a transit corridor for migrants and contraband,
from
food and gasoline
to
illegal drugs.
One indication of the mass of humanity en route to the United States is the record numbers of migrants crossing the Darien Gap, the treacherous, 60-mile stretch of rainforest between Colombia and Panama. Migrants from South America, Africa, Asia and elsewhere
now
regularly navigate
their way through the
terrain that was once considered
nearly practically
unpassable but has in recent years become one of the planets busiest migration corridors.
Between January and April, 127,687 migrants crossed the Darien, according to Panamanian authorities.
There were fewer That compares to fewer
than 20,000
(19,925)
in the same period last year.
Yet 2022 as a whole set an annual record of almost 250,000. (2022)when an annual record of almost 250,000 migrants was eventually set.
Venezuelans are the largest single group crossing the Darien,
statistics show,
followed by Haitians. Almost all are seeking to make it here to Mexico,
and
then to the United States.
Mexican authorities are
also
reporting record numbers of applications for political
asylum in Mexico
almost 50,000 between January and April
this year(2023)
. Many asylum seekers
in Mexico
say they plan to try and enter the United States once they receive legal refuge in Mexico a status that will allow them to travel freely
to the northern border.within Mexico to the northern border.Here,
At the Suchiate River, Mexican immigration agents and National Guard troops watch impassively in the morning swelter as steady streams of migrants alight from the river boats. Passenger
s
pay a crossing fare of about $1.50, and Mexican officials
are making currently make
no effort to turn them back.
Wealthier migrants
turn to tend to use
the services of coyotes, or people-smugglers, who often use motorbikes to take them
on the next step
north. The smugglers usher their charges down dirt paths, past banana groves and into safe houses, as a prelude to
for
the next leg of the journey.
But many cant afford those services. They make their way on their own, clambering up
to
the river levee and onto the streets below, often dazed from the trip and the unforgiving, subtropical heat.
What fate
now
awaits the migrants after crossing from Guatemala into Mexico remains
something of
a question mark.
With the end of Title 42, migrants say, Mexican authorities stopped issuing temporary safe conduct passes. Those documents had allowed many to make their way to the northern border largely unimpeded by Mexican immigration enforcement.
Now,
However, Mexican authorities appear
to
have shifted tactics: Although they are
While
not being immediately turned back at the border, migrants are being stopped at checkpoints on roads radiating from the border zone. They are then bused to points in the Mexican interior
, and though
it is unclear if they will ultimately be allowed to continue
on
to
the
U.S.
territory
or face deportation or detention in Mexico.
Mexicos intention appears to be to disperse the swelling migrant population and avoid highly visible buildups in northern and southern border communities.
Mexico has been flying migrants at its northern border from at least one city, Reynosa, to the
Mexican
interior, according to a tweet last week
(Tuesday, 16 May)
from U.S. Customs and Border
ProtectionInspection
. In addition, Mexican authorities have moved groups of stranded migrants from Mexico City to sites in the
Mexican
interior.
One prevalent rumor is that migrants transported to the
Mexican
interior are being asked to sign a declaration vowing to leave Mexico
within three days. That is sufficient time to reach
Mexican
towns and cities along the U.S. border.
Mexican immigration officials did not return messages seeking comment.
Mexicos
immigration agency, known as the
National Immigration Institute has been in disarray since a fire in March
(March 27)
at a lockup in Ciudad Jurez in which 40 migrants perished. The agency
s
director is facing criminal charges for
alleged
negligence, and the institute has temporarily shut down all 33
of its
detention centers, including six here in Chiapas state, along the border with Guatemala.
We really dont know whats going to happen next, said Edward Kapulun, a native of Sierra Leone who was among some 150 migrants stuck at a litter-strewn camp outside the southern city of Tapachula, next to a Mexican immigration checkpoint. Agents had removed many
off
northbound buses and taxis. We are just waiting here to find out.
said Kapulun.
Among those
also
marooned at
this and other
camps next to checkpoints in recent days were people from Congo, Senegal, Afghanistan, China and other
far-flung
nations, though Venezuelans appeared to be the largest single group.
Many fear being kidnapped or robbed
and
with good reason. Last week, Mexican authorities rescued some 50 U.S.-bound migrants mostly Venezuelans and Central Americans who had been abducted from a bus in
the north of the country.northern Mexico.
A group of six African men at the makeshift camp outside Tapachula said they had paid $300 each
a total of $1,800–
to a taxi driver to take them to the U.S. border, some 1,000 miles away. Instead, the driver dropped them off at the checkpoint in Tapachula, about 30 miles from the Guatemalan frontier, and drove off with their cash.
Kapulun, 29, an electrical engineer who installed solar panels back home in Freetown, said he
is was gay and
faced repression in Sierra Leone because of his sexual orientation. He said he plans to seek asylum in the United States.
Like others here, he flew to South America and made his way overland to Central America crossing the Darien Gap and later boarded buses and other transport through Central America before reaching Mexico.
A group of 21 Afghans
including men, women and children
was also stuck at the roadside camp, next to a fetid stream that many used to wash clothes. The
yAfghans
said they were ethnic Hazaras, a mostly Shiite group that has
repeatedly
been targeted by the Taliban and other militant Sunni factions
.
All
of them said they
had flown
from Dubai
to Brazil
from Dubai
and made the
overland journey of more than 4,000 milesmore-than 4,000- mile overland journey
to Mexico, mostly on buses.
My question is: How do we become Americans? asked Nematullah Nikzad, 30, who said his family ran a clothing shop
back
in Kabul. Under the Taliban, life is very hard for us now. We want to be Americans.
His wife and three children remain in the Afghan capital, he said. He hopes to send for them once he is settled in the United States.
Eliana Parra, 48, from Venezuela was traveling with
herthree
granddaughters, ages
aged
9, 7 and 4. They were headed to Indiana, she said, where her daughter, the girls’ mother,
the mother of the girls
has
d
been living for
a the past
year.
It has been a very hard trip, Parra said, recalling the
difficult
trek through the Darien with
theyoung
children. But my daughter said its time our family needs to be together again.”
A group of six Chinese men and women said they were headed to Flushing, in the New York City borough of Queens. They had heard of a large Chinese community there. Communicating with a reporter through a
cell-phone
translation app, one of the
Chinese
men, Yelong Yang,
described spoke of
their motivation.
We just think of Americas dream of freedom, wrote Yang, 23. We want a better future in America.
Special correspondents Liliana Nieto del Ro, Juan de Dios Garca Davish and Mara de Jess Peters in southern Mexico and Cecilia Snchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
