A caravan of more than 1,000 migrants from Venezuela left the southern border of Mexico this Friday despite the new immigration restrictions announced by the United States to contain the growing flow of Venezuelans.
(Also read: The implications of the new US measure. to control Venezuelan migration)
The migrants left on foot at dawn from Tapachula, on the border between Mexico and Guatemala, bound for the United States because they do not want to be stranded in Central America or Mexican territory.
This is the first caravan of migrants from Venezuela since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Wednesday the immediate expulsion of Venezuelans who arrive in the United States when crossing the border with Mexico.
Gabriela Pérez, a migrant from Venezuela, told EFE that they will not stop on the highway because the situation for Venezuelans is “difficult and critical.”
“We hope to meet with more groups of about 1,000 or 500 that go further ahead and we will walk as necessary, we do not plan to make any kind of scandal in your country (Mexico), since the destination is the United States,” said the woman.
For Venezuelans, the decision of the United States “is not humanitarian”, because they are leaving them in Mexico without any support. After the binational agreement, the National Institute of Migration (INM) has reinforced the migratory checkpoints on the highways from the border state of Chiapas.
“They send us to Mexico, then to Venezuela, and who wants to return after having suffered so much? That is why we are walking to reach our destination, nothing backwards, everything forward,” migrant Jordi Moisés Taborda told EFE.
They send us to Mexico, then to Venezuela, and who wants to return after having suffered so much?
The group of people, who have walked in the dark and lit only by the light of the vehicles that circulate on the highway, requested an extension of about 15 days for people who are already in transit through Mexico.
Otoniel Ferrer, barely 20 years old, is a migrant from Venezuela who left his family in his country to venture for the first time to seek luck in the United States.
“When I left Venezuela, the doors of the United States were open to Venezuelans, but now we have a lot of uncertainty, we entered Mexico and collided with the National Migration Institute, which does not let us move forward,” he said.
“Now we learn that there is no passage for the United States, but we are going to try them thousands of times as necessary and with our heads held high,” he warned.
In Tapachula, another group of Venezuelans stayed and will join other contingents coming from Central America to decide their next steps.
The region is experiencing a record migratory flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection Officea (CBP, in English) has intercepted more than 2.15 million people so far in fiscal year 2022
In addition, migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela accounted for more than 55,000 of the undocumented found at the US-Mexico border in August, an annual increase of 175%.
EFE
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