Yanet Pérez has been since last Saturday in front of the immigration offices of Tapachula, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, bordering Guatemala, waiting for her request to obtain a humanitarian visa to be processed. “The pass is five per nationality, between 25 and 30 throughout the day,” she tells 14ymedio This 32-year-old woman originally from Caibarién in the province of Villa Clara.
Pérez travels with his son and a niece. Her husband, named Ernesto, sent her the money to make the journey. “An coyote he charges $32,000 to take us to the border, if I had that money I wouldn’t give it to him, I prefer to go legal,” recounts the experience of a nephew, who was deported in September 2021. “This person (the smuggler) received the money and left them in a hotel with false papers. Immigration detained him and returned him.”
The Cuban woman ruled out resorting to a refugee application before the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar) after a lawyer asked her for $2,000 to carry out the process. “That’s free,” a compatriot told her that she met in the Bicentennial Park. “For the procedure there was a huge queue like the ones in Cuba. They serve 40, but it is not certain that they will give it.”
The Comar registered until the month of April 40,026 refugee applications, 29,139 of them were presented in the two delegations that are in the state of Chiapas. Of this figure, in total, 8,845 Cubans have resorted to this route in order to remain in Mexico and continue on their way to the border with the United States.
A ‘coyote’ charges 32,000 dollars to take us to the border, if I had that money I would not give it to him, I prefer to go legal”
Jorge Luis Cruz is another of the Cubans who is in Tapachula. He joined the caravan that sought to leave the state last week, but Migration returned them and he, along with 35 other migrants, kept them detained for three days. “They don’t let you out, they don’t give you papers and they have us stuck,” he says. “Those of us who don’t have money are the ones who are here, those who pay pass quickly.”
About 200 migrants from a new caravan blocked this Tuesday the four lanes of a highway that is located in the Álvaro Obregón ejido and prevented the passage of carriers and cargo units. People from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Guatemala require the delivery of humanitarian visas.
A representation of Migration arrived at the place and offered to negotiate the delivery and transfer them to Tapachula. The protesters refused, arguing that when they are returned, they separate families.
The protest occurs after the tour of the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, through Central America and Cuba, where he discussed migration with his counterparts.
The region is experiencing a record migratory 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 last September 30.
But Mexico has also faced criticism for the deployment of more than 20,000 Armed Forces troops to the northern and southern border to detain migrants, of whom it deported more than 114,000 in 2021.
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