At least 1,000 Cuban, Haitian, African, Venezuelan and Central American migrants protested Tuesday outside immigration regularization offices in the border town of Tapachula.in the state of Chiapas, in southern Mexico, to apply for temporary 30-day permits at the National Institute of Migration (INM) and be able to travel with them to the northern border.

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On Tuesday, dozens of people covered in umbrellas, boxes and plastic sheeting gathered behind the metal fences that federal authorities are placing to divide the various contingents arriving to complete their immigration procedures.

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Houler Pérez Coba, a migrant from Cuba, said that every day between 5,000 and 8,000 people gather to get the 30-day permit to get out of Tapachula.

“I have been waiting (here) since last Wednesday, we are in an unsanitary situation, rainy, sunny, a lot of garbage and there are no conditions for trading,” the man said.

Migrants have called for their migration processes to be expedited to avoid outbreaks of diseases such as influenza and dengue fever.

They also said that the slowness of immigration procedures forces them to leave
in a caravan, since they consider it “the most agile solution” to obtain the document in the other INM facilities.

In the outer part of the Tapachula building there is a section of the National Guard (GN) which has been tasked with ensuring the security of the perimeter enclosure of the migration regularization offices.

Bárbara Romero, a migrant from Venezuela, told Efe that on Monday evening they had distributed “permits” for 30 days to continue moving forward, but the authorities had not given them more information.

“We’re going out in the caravan, if they don’t take care of us we’ll go out tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, (…) If we have to walk to get the papers, we’ll do that,” Romero said.

According to a National Guard officer, about 250 people entered the building early Tuesday morning.

The Tapachula ranges and camps reflect record-breaking migration to the United States, which the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has detected more
of 1.7 million undocumented immigrants at the border with Mexico in fiscal year 2021, which ended on September 30.

In Mexico, a record 58,642 people sought refuge in 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 Aid to Refugees (Comar).

INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE

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