US-Mexico border crisis: Over 2,000 migrants march towards USA from Tapachula

More than 2,000 immigrants, mostly of Central American origin, on October 23, started marching towards the US-Mexico border from a city in southern Mexico, where they had been effectively trapped, news agency AP reported. The migrants proceeded west and north along a highway going towards the United States border.

During the state police's attempts to prevent the group from moving forward, a minor dispute occurred injuring a little child. However, despite that, the migrants proceeded on their journey.

Meanwhile, the migrants barely reached Alvaro Obregon, a neighbouring community, before halting for the night at a baseball field. The Associated Press quoted a Honduran migrant, José Antonio, who refused to provide his last name in fear of jeopardising his case, as saying that he had been waiting in Tapachula for nearly two months for a response to his visa request application.

Antonio, who is a construction worker, said, “They told me I had to wait because the appointments were full. There is no work there (in Tapachula), so out of necessity I joined this group.” He added that he expects to find a job in the northern city of Monterrey. 

Migrants frustrated after waiting for two months at Tapachula

Smaller efforts at identical breakouts of migrants were prevented earlier this year by police, immigration authorities, as well as the National Guard. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador, and Haiti have been waiting at Tapachula, a southern city in Mexico, for refugee or immigration documents that would permit them to travel, but have now grown frustrated with the lengthy procedure, AP reported. 

Notably, the march which began on Saturday in Tapachula is quite different from the earlier marches as it does not feature as many Haitian migrants, who flocked to the US in large numbers in September near Del Rio, Texas. Over hundreds of Haitians, Cubans, and Central Americans started walking down a roadway from Tapachula in August but were stopped by National Guard forces in riot gear, AP reported. Mexico demands that those migrants who are seeking humanitarian visas or asylum must wait for their claims to be processed in the border state of Chiapas, bordering Guatemala.

Arrests along USA's southern border reaches all-time high 

It should be mentioned here that detention and arrests along the southern border of the USA reached an all-time high in 2021, according to US Customs and Border Protection. 

The US Customs and Border Protection data states that almost 1.7 million immigrants were held at the border in the last year, the largest number in any fiscal year in history. The numbers have risen dramatically in recent months, following a large increase in migration to the US-Mexico border, which peaked in the summer. 

According to official records, around 61% of migrants detected in the last year were deported to Mexico or their native countries. This has been conducted under the Title 42 public health policy, which entails fast expulsions rather than deportations, which means that US authorities do not keep track of people who are sent back. Separately, according to the report, during the fiscal year 2021, a total number of 671,000 migrants and refugees were assessed under immigration rules and put in deportation proceedings.

(With inputs from AP, Image: AP)