TENOSIQUE, Mexico (AP) – At the first Mexican shelter for migrants after walking through the Guatemalan jungle, about 150 migrants sleep in their bedrooms and another 150 lie on thin mattresses spread across the floor of their chapel.
In just six weeks of the year, the shelter known as “The 72” has hosted nearly 1,500 migrants, compared to 3,000 last year. It has halved its sleeping space due to the pandemic. Last year was not a problem because few immigrants arrived, but this year it has been overwhelmed.
“We have a huge flow and no capacity,” said Gabriel Romero, the priest who runs the Tenosique refuge, a city in the southern state of Tabasco. “It simply came to our notice then. We need a dialogue with all the authorities before this becomes chaos. ”In particular, he would like the government to help immigrants who camp outside while they are full.
Migrants from Latin America, from the Caribbean, South America and Central America, are leaving again. After a year of pandemic-induced paralysis, those in daily contact with migrants believe the flow north could return to the high levels seen in late 2018 and early 2019. The difference is that it would happen during a pandemic.
Sanitary protection measures imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19, including drastically reduced bed space in shelters along the route, mean fewer safe spaces for migrants in transit.
“The flow is increasing and the problem is that there is less capacity than before to meet their needs” due to the pandemic, said Sergio Martin, head of the non-governmental aid group Doctors Without Borders in Mexico.
Some shelters remain closed by local health authorities and almost all have had to reduce the number of migrants they can help. Applications for visas, asylum or any other official document are delayed due to the reduced capacity of the government due to the pandemic to process them.
“This is not a post-COVID migration; it is a migration in the midst of the pandemic, which makes it even more vulnerable, “said Ruben Figueroa, an activist for the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement.
Some migrants have expressed hope for a kinder reception from the new US administration or have begun to move when some borders were reopened. Others are being driven by two major hurricanes that hit Central America in November and despair intensified over the economic impact of the pandemic.
Olga Rodríguez, 27, had been walking for a month since she left Honduras with her husband and four children, ages 3 to 8, after Hurricane Eta flooded the street vendors’ home. They arrived in Mexico and applied for asylum, but said it would take six months. Forced to sleep on the street, they changed their plans.
“The kids were cold, we got wet and I told my husband if we would go with the cold and the rain, we better walk,” she said from Coatzacoalcos. Now their target is the United States.
The administration of President Joe Biden has taken steps to reverse some of former President Donald Trump’s toughest policies, but it remains a policy that allows U.S. border officials to send almost everyone immediately because of the pandemic. The U.S. government is concerned that the most hopeful message could lead to a rush to the border and says it will take time to implement new policies.
The number of people detained on the US-Mexico border in January was more than double that of the same month last year and 20,000 above January 2019. This week, families have been seen crossing from Ciudad Juárez. and surrendering to the Border Patrol in hopes of seeking asylum.
“Wait in your country or, if you’re in Mexico, wait” until you can be sure you can cross legally, said Roberta Jacobson, senior White House border adviser, recently.
Last week, the Biden administration announced that it would slowly begin prosecuting the approximately 25,000 asylum seekers who were forced to wait for their trial in Mexico under Trump. It was scheduled to begin Friday at three border crossings.
Mexico has said so far that it will continue to implement “orderly” migration, which in practice has meant trying to contain migrants in the south since Trump threatened tariffs on all Mexican imports in 2019.
On Tuesday, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said in a statement that authorities had made 50 raids on freight train lines since Jan. 25 in southern and central Mexico, detaining about 1,200 migrants.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently warned immigrants not to be fooled by traffickers who promise the U.S. will open its doors.
Isabel Chávez, one of the nuns working at the Palenque immigrant shelter, about 100 kilometers from Tenosique, said they had to reduce the number of days migrants could stay there to a maximum of two due to the “Allau.” of migrants who arrived in January. There would be up to 220 migrants compared to the 100 they would see before the pandemic began in March 2020, he said.
In Tapachula, the largest Mexican city near the border with Guatemala and home to Mexico’s largest detention center, there are also signs of an increase. “There are more people seeking refuge and the increase in migrants is evident in the city’s public spaces,” said Enrique Vidal Olascoaga, a lawyer for the non-governmental organization Fray Matías de Córdova, which helps migrants with procedures. legal.
César Augusto Cañaveral, the director of the Bon Pastor shelter in Tapachula, regretted having to close the shelter doors after it was filled in late January.
“Now we take food out into the street and some of us sleep outside,” but this has worried the shelter’s residents, who are concerned about the risk of COVID-19 infections. “This will be more complicated than (the wave of immigrants in 2018), because the cherry on top is COVID-19,” he said.
Now, more than 1,300 kilometers to the southeast, some 1,500 migrants spread across various camps in Panama are aiming to reach Tapachula, either as a temporary stopover en route to the U.S. border or to start the asylum process in Mexico.
Panama reopened the border in late January, and since then, groups have emerged from the dense jungle of Darien that divides Panama and Colombia. The government has been moving them to other camps closer to the Costa Rican border to make room for newcomers.
Last week, Guatemalan immigration officials warned that a new caravan of immigrants could be formed in the coming days in Honduras. In January, Guatemalan authorities blocked the first caravan of the year and sent nearly 5,000 Hondurans to their country in a ten-day period.
But while Guatemala focused on the caravan, other migrants moved north as always in small discreet groups. It was during the caravan last month that shelters in southern Mexico began to see their numbers increase with most Honduran immigrants.
Small groups of migrants are more vulnerable to criminals who kidnap and extort them, activist Figueroa said.
The most invisible are those who pay smugglers to stuff them into trailers like the one the Mexican authorities stopped in Veracruz this week. Inside were 233 migrants, most from Guatemala.
In late January, 19 bodies, shot and burned, were found inside a van near the Mexico-Texas border. Most were believed to be Guatemalan migrants. A dozen state police officers were arrested in connection with the case.
“We anticipate an increase in violence,” said Sergio Martin of Doctors Without Borders, noting that despite the pandemic, immigrants continue to be forced to move clandestinely.
Right on the border from where the bodies were found, the Rev. Francisco Gallardo, director of the Matamoros migrant shelter, said he had recently made arrangements for two pregnant women to give birth to their babies in Mexico City. .
“Two families with two eight-month-pregnant women have just crossed the river” into the United States, he said, referring to the Great River that divides the two countries. “They already had their smuggler and decided to take a risk.”
Back in southern Mexico, migrant Edilberto Aguilar continued to walk. “This is a chain,” the 33-year-old Honduran said. “One day we arrive and tomorrow others arrive. That never ends. “
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Verza reported from Mexico City. AP writers Juan Zamorano in Panama City and Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City collaborated.