In Plaza de la Soledad, migrants live in constant uncertainty

Jessica Xantomila and Jared Laureles

The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, July 28, 2024, p. 4

In a tent measuring approximately 2 meters long and 1.40 meters wide, Graciela and her three children, originally from Guatemala, have been living for two months in the irregular camp for migrants in Plaza de la Soledad, in the neighborhood of La Merced. Although the small space where they sleep and have their food, clothing and personal items is insufficient and fragile, with the rains that have hit the city they suffer from flooding and are in constant uncertainty of losing their belongings and even their home.

The lack of a decent roof has exposed them to respiratory diseases, which is why this family has been living for several days with flu and coughThis reality is similar for the estimated 600 people, including children, who live in the area, where some also live in rooms they call little ranchesbuilt with scraps of wood and plywood boards.

In an interview, Graciela, who left her country due to violence and is waiting for an appointment to request asylum in the United States through the CBP One application, said that to cope with the rainy season she reinforced her small home with two layers of plastic and a tarp.

When it rains We all get into the tent, especially if it’s a storm, because we have to lower the tarp to cover us and keep the water out, because if it gets in it will wet everything we have.he pointed.

She confessed that when there is wind, her fear increases, “because you say: ‘this is going to fly away,’ but there are times when the house does move.”

The fear of losing everything is a feeling expressed by most of the migrants who live in Plaza de la Soledad and in the vicinity of the parish of Santa Cruz and la Soledad. “We are terrified because if something were to happen, one wonders ‘where are we going to run?’, even worse with the children,” said Graciela.

This camp is the largest in Mexico City, there are mainly Venezuelans, Haitians, Ecuadorians and Central Americans, and most of the foreigners are stranded because they are waiting for their asylum application appointment via CBP One.

In this multi-colored area, with tents and tarps, migrants have set up food stands, beauty salons, places to charge their cell phones and even to wash clothes. Between the corridors that have formed between the tents and little ranches It is observed that some are installed on platforms in order to prevent water from wetting their belongings.

Graciela commented that in addition to the already precarious conditions in which they find themselves, there is a plague of rats that roam around the tents night after night and which, she said, come from the garbage dumps near the area. It’s not just one, there are several and they are huge, as if they were rabbits!he said.

He said he had to change his tent because rodents damaged the one he had. They broke it and got into it, they even chewed my children’s documents, the folder and the paper. I’m scared for the children, because those animals are terrible, imagine if they bite them! They can give them a disease..

Five months in the little ranch

For her part, Ingrid, a Honduran, said that for those who live in the little rancheslike her, the situation is not so different. One has a bad time because we do not have enough resources to be well.lament.

She explained that in her case she has been living with her husband in this camp for five months now and only 15 days ago she managed to build her room, because in the tents Yes, we got really wetNow he even has a makeshift bed made of wooden crates on which he has placed cardboard and blankets.

In a tour conducted by this newspaper, he showed his little ranch installed in a planter. He said that despite the wood and plywood, water gets in from below, Because this has no way out and I have to be throwing it out so as not to flood..

He hoped to leave this place soon, when his CBP One appointment arrives. “I am waiting for the application… Thank God at least we have this space and we can stay here,” he said.