The INM conditioned permits to “social work” of migrants

Elio Henriquez

Correspondent

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, July 5, 2022, p. 7

San Cristóbal De Las Casas, Chis., Immigration authorities handed over up to the last permit of 30 days to the foreigners who left in a caravan from Tapachula last Friday and others who joined them, informed Mariana Ramírez, one of the group’s spokespersons. She added that the last 600 documents were delivered on Sunday night, after the migrants made social work, that is, cleaning the entire migratory stationlocated in Huixtla.

In a telephone interview, Ramírez explained that on July 3 Around 10 or 11 p.m., Migration told us that if we wanted the permits, we had to do social work, which is to clean the entire immigration station, from the internal to the external parts. So, we had to clean, clean and order so that they would grant us the permits.

He added that Thank God, yesterday they finished handing out the last 30-day permit, but we had to clean it up. It is not that all of a sudden (the employees of the National Migration Institute, INM) do it because it is their duty and it is a free process. No. They put us to clean to earn the right to demand the permit. And in the worst ways, at the level of treatment and expression; It is not that they ask you to work as a team, but that they demand it of you, they treat you as if you were a servant, a being of no importance and worthless in this country.

He commented that the migrants who participated in the social work They were the last 600 who had not received the document to move to the northern border and try to enter the United States. Were the people left behindbut later INM officials they got bad-hearted and started running people away and saying that if they didn’t leave the facilities, they would call their agents to arrest them and take them to the Siglo 21 immigration station.located in Tapachula, 40 kilometers from Huixtla.

Between so many fights and agreements, talking and talking, the agreement was reached that we would do the cleaning in exchange for the permits, and thus it was possible for those who were pending to obtain it.he pointed.

Ramírez estimated that since the previous Friday, when the caravan arrived in Huixtla of more than 5 thousand people, not including those who, as a result of the march, joined the last one without being on the listthe immigration authorities extended to foreigners, mainly Venezuelans, more than 6 thousand permits.