Around 3,000 migrants from Central America, Venezuela, Cuba, and Haiti caused a traffic blockade on a major highway in southern Mexico on Wednesday. Their demand was for transit or exit visas that would allow them to reach the U.S. border. The group, which included women and children, began their journey on foot from Tapachula, a city near the Guatemalan border, on October 30th, with the intention of heading north towards the U.S. border.
Upon reaching Huixtla, another town in the southern state of Chiapas, the migrants halted their journey and attempted to obtain temporary travel documents to cross Mexico. On Wednesday, they created a blockade at highway inspection booths just outside Huixtla. Irineo Mújica, an activist and one of the organizers of the march, stated that the blockade would continue due to migrants’ fear of criminals, smugglers, and extortionists who could prey on them if they continued walking. Many migrants also expressed their preference for taking buses, but without proper documentation, they were often prohibited from doing so.
Mújica acknowledged the discomfort caused to Mexicans by the blockade but emphasized that the migrants faced danger from drug cartels. Herson Fernández, a Honduran migrant traveling with his wife and three children, tearfully explained that they had run out of money and were not receiving any assistance or documents from the authorities. He expressed that their goal was to reach the United States for a better future for their children.
However, the Mexican government’s Refugee Aid Commission clarified in a statement that it does not issue transit visas. While the current caravan is one of the largest since June 2022, it has received less attention compared to the migrant caravans in 2018 and 2019. With as many as 10,000 migrants arriving at the U.S. border in recent weeks, the October 30th march is now a small fraction of the overall number.
In the past, Mexico’s approach was to wait for the marchers to tire out and then offer them rides back to their home countries or to alternative processing centers. The southwestern U.S. border has been struggling to handle the increasing influx of migrants from South America who rapidly cross the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama before heading north. Panamanian figures revealed that by September, around 420,000 migrants, aided by Colombian smugglers, had passed through the gap this year.
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