About 1,000 migrants Cubans, Haitians, Africans, Venezuelans and Central Americans protested this Tuesday outside the immigration regularization offices of the border city of Tapachula, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, to request temporary 30-day permits from the National Institute of Migration (INM) and with them to be able to travel to the northern border.
This Tuesday, dozens of people covered with umbrellas, cardboard and plastic tarps gathered behind the metal fences that the federal authorities place to divide the various contingents that arrive to carry out their immigration processes.
Houler Pérez Coba, a migrant from Cuba, said that every day between 5,000 and 8,000 people gather for the 30-day permit to get out of Tapachula.
“I have been waiting (here) since last Wednesday, we are in an unhealthy situation, rains, sun, a lot of garbage and there are no conditions to do the business,” said the man.
The migrants asked for their migration processes to be speeded up to avoid outbreaks of diseases such as influenza and dengue.
Likewise, they announced that the slow pace of immigration procedures forces them to leave in a caravan, since they consider that it is “the most agile solution” to obtain the document in other INM facilities.
In the external part of the Tapachula building there is a section of the National Guard (GN) that has been in charge of providing security to the perimeter enclosure of the migratory regularization offices.
Bárbara Romero, a migrant from Venezuela, told Efe that on Monday night they distributed “some permits” for 30 days to continue advancing, but that the authorities did not give them more information.
“We are going to go out in a caravan, if they do not attend to us we will leave tomorrow or the day after, (…) If we have to walk to get the papers, we will do it,” Romero snapped.
According to a National Guard officer, around 250 people entered the building early Tuesday morning.
The lines and camps in Tapachula reflect the record migratory flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office detected more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants on the border with Mexico in fiscal year 2021, which ended on September 30 last.
In Mexico, a record 58,642 people applied for refuge during the first half of 2022, which means an increase of 14.88% compared to the same period in 2021, according to a recent report by the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar). .
