MIAMI, United States.- The second migrant caravan of this 2022, which left last Friday from the Mexican city of Tapachula, border with Guatemala, with the aim of reaching Mexico City, ended this Sunday by surrendering to the authorities of the National Institute of Migration (INM), said the EFE news agency.
According to the information, the caravan lasted three days and barely advanced about 16 kilometers, and numerous Cubans traveled in it, some of whom began a hunger strike to be allowed to travel to the border with the United States.
In the group were, in addition to the Cubans, citizens of Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Syria and other nationalities.
According to EFE, several representatives of the caravan managed to establish a dialogue with the immigration authorities so that they would be allowed to continue on their way. In some cases they will be granted visas for humanitarian reasons to continue with their destination or to work in Mexico.
Cuban Jorge Sánchez decided to turn himself in to the INM agents so that he would no longer continue walking, not have problems and be at peace. “They take us to a place to be able to have documents, without knowing our destination,” he told EFE.
For Cubans and other of their countrymen “it is increasingly difficult to be able to travel through Mexico”, which is why they are afraid to continue walking and are very distrustful, because when they arrive in Mexican territory they are taken to the Siglo XXI immigration station in Tapachula.
Until this Sunday, the caravan had 456 people, after 90 migrants were detained on Friday, April 1. This, said the director of the Center for Human Dignification in Tapachula, Luis Rey García Villagrán, paradoxically helped them get their documents.
After trying to talk this Friday with the Mexican authorities, the migrants threatened to start a hunger strike. On Sunday, the INM representative in Chiapas, Paola López Rodas, tried to solve the problem, and finally they reached an agreement and the migrants surrendered.
This is the second migrant caravan of 2022. A first contingent, with some 500 people, left last January, but only advanced about 20 kilometers due to pressure from the authorities.
According to data from the US immigration authorities, between last October and February of this year, a total of 47,331 Cuban migrants entered the US, after a record number of 16,657 arrived at the border in February alone.
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