Three days after a group of migrants forcibly entered and vandalized the immigration processing offices in Tapachula, Chiapas, a state bordering Guatemala, agents from the National Migration Institute (INM) carried out raids on Saturday night. “They want to instill fear. They came to the Bicentennial Park threatening and looking for people,” he tells 14ymedio Mayelin Gutiérrez, originally from Havana.
The 29-year-old woman points out two people from organizing the protest last Friday. “They talked to people from Nicaragua and then the Haitians joined in. When they started throwing stones I walked away.”
According to the newspaper Excelsior, the migrants were incited by “the alleged defenders” of human rights in Nicaragua, Ignacio Rocha and rose castlewhose organization is identified as Miel y Canela Fundation.
“Immigration has already closed and they say that we will no longer have the 180-day safe-conduct to reach the border with the United States,” says Gutiérrez. “We are thinking of going out in a caravan, they are already organizing.”
Migration indicated through a statement that due to “the violent irruption of migrants to the facilities, promoted by pseudo-leaders”, the service was temporarily suspended in the immigration regulation offices located on Vialidad Street No. 435, Fraccionamiento Las Vegas, Tapachula .
According to the Excelsior newspaper, the migrants were incited by “alleged defenders” of Nicaraguan human rights, Ignacio Rocha and Rosa Castillo.
The coordinator of the Center for Human Dignity, Luis Garcia Villagranmentions 14ymedio that the protests and blockades of people from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and some Africans “will continue as long as the immigration authorities do not expedite the delivery of documents to foreigners who are desperate and looking to leave the city.”
In addition, it indicates that in the process there is corruption on the part of some officials. “They don’t give you the free permit, they charge you about 3,000 or 4,000 Mexican pesos (147 dollars or 196 dollars),” Venezuelan Anthony Arriaga told the EFE news agency.
In recent weeks there have been several protests in Tapachula to request the speeding up of immigration documents.
In some of these marches there have been clashes with the National Guard and, on at least one occasion, a group of migrants of Haitian and African origin broke into the INM headquarters by force.
The region is experiencing a record flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection Office detected more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants on the border with Mexico between October 2020 and September 2021.
Mexico deported more than 114,000 foreigners in 2021, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior. The Mexican authorities have intercepted 73,034 foreigners with an irregular stay between January 1 and March 8 of this year, according to the INM.
Meanwhile, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) received a record 131,448 refugee applications in 2021.
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