A new migrant caravan left Saturday morning from Tapachula, Chiapas, bound for the United States. The march was called at 6 in the morning and a press conference was scheduled to explain their reasons, but throughout the night the National Guard carried out operations in the center of the municipality and the marchers decided to get on the road.
This is the fourth caravan to be organized in the last week. The other three were dispersed by agents of the National Institute of Migration (INM) and National Guard, who carried out operations to stop their advance, arresting dozens of people.
See also: Arrests, clashes and raids: the hunt for migrants that occurs in Chiapas
At least 300 people of different nationalities participate in the caravan that departed today: Haitians, Central Americans and Venezuelans.
This fourth caravan arises for the same reasons as the previous ones: the tiredness of migrants and asylum seekers stranded in Tapachula before the policies of the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador that prevent them from advancing north.
Photo: Alberto Pradilla
Animal Político was able to talk with one of its promoters, a Honduran who has been trapped in the city for more than six months after escaping from Honduras to ask for asylum. He explained that the call arises from the fatigue of thousands of migrants who are trapped in Tapachula without being able to advance. He said the goal is not to confront the National Guard but to move forward, and he was confident that he could move forward despite the background.
Throughout the night, National Guard operations were registered against migrants sleeping in the central park of Tapachula. The influx of people is so great in the municipality that many do not even have a room to sleep in, so they spend the night in the city center.
The caravan left after 6 a.m. and is scheduled to spend its first night in Huixtla, the next town 41 kilometers away. The big question is what the reaction of the National Guard and the INM will be, which in the last week were questioned by the violence used by their officials. Not only were there attacks against migrants, but journalists were also beaten and threatened.
Find out: Another operation attacks and threatens migrants, activists and journalists in Mapastepec, Chiapas
To the cry of “the united people will never be defeated”, on Saturday morning a new migrant caravan leaves Tapachula, Chiapas.
As in past groups, men, women and minors walk.
?️ @albertopradilla pic.twitter.com/YxOS5YP9fm
— Animal Político (@Pajaropolitico) September 4, 2021
So far the strategy of the authorities is to allow the migrants to walk, let them get tired and then launch the operations to detain them and return them to Tapachula. Although many of them are registered as asylum seekers, which should serve so that they are not deported, they are being expelled to Guatemala.
Animal Político was able to document that at least one of the people who was detained in last week’s caravans was expelled to the Messiah, a remote border area between Chiapas and Guatemala, located nearly 200 kilometers from Tapachula.
Despite the images of violence in recent days, Mexico’s government insists on its policy of detaining, detaining and deporting migrants. This is the strategy agreed with the US executive, which demands that the flow of foreigners on its northern border be stopped.
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