A year ago, Yessica left Venezuela pregnant to seek a better future away from the economic and political crisis that her country is experiencing. The destination: United States. 5,000 kilometers away. The little money she saved, the fatigue of walking with swollen feet from pregnancy, and the dangers of the road turned her and her family’s trip into an obstacle course. Yessica travels with her three children, her husband, her brother and her mother. “We have been to Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and now Mexico,” says the 34-year-old woman, from a shelter in Tapachula, in the border state of Chiapas. The baby was born during the summer rains, in the middle of the Guatemalan jungle. “It was very hard,” says Yessica. “Although the hardest part is passing through Mexico,” he adds. “They kidnapped us when we crossed the river, they put us in a house and we had to pay 100 dollars each to let us go.” In total, they had to pay the cartel $800 to escape. Now, they continue waiting for the US authorities to give them an appointment to request asylum in that country. Since this summer, the CBP One application from Customs and Borders allows you to complete the process from the southern border of Mexico and wait there until you are called.
This fact, added to the crises due to violence in several countries, has doubled irregular entries, especially of migrants from Venezuela, Ecuador, Honduras and Guatemala. The data already exceeds 828,000 people so far in 2024, according to official data. More than recorded by the authorities during all of 2023. They are fleeing violence, poverty and the effects of climate change. Of all of them, about 97,000 are children. Images of massive caravans with thousands of people have given way to smaller groups, but the trickle of people is constant on this porous border. The authorities, the polleros, the drug traffickers, the boatmen who cross the Suchiate and the local population know it. “People have a lot of hope in this application, the number of people has increased by more than 100%,” says priest César Cañaveral, administrator of the Belén migrant shelter, in Tapachula.
The feeling of most people in transit is similar. “We do it to have a better life,” says Javier, a 37-year-old Venezuelan, who shows the CBP One application on his cell phone. “And we do it for our children,” a countryman interrupts. Javier arrived in Tapachula 15 days ago. Before that, he worked for five years in Chile, but the authorities of that country ruled his expulsion. In the Central Park of Tapachula, next to the church, he meets with other countrymen to work. The mosaic of faces and accents makes it evident that the city has become one of the nerve centers of migration in Mexico. In the mornings Javier sells coffee at affordable prices and in the afternoons he offers cell phone chips and money transfers from nearby stores. This earns a small commission. “Yesterday I made 150 pesos [unos 7 dólares]but life is very expensive; everything costs here,” he says.
Tapachula has become a reflection of what happens in other parts of Chiapas. The territorial dispute between criminal groups has reached the border city. Murders, extortions and kidnappings are the order of the day. On October 1, six migrants traveling in the back of a truck, not far from the city, were murdered by the Army at a checkpoint on the highway between Huixtla and Villa Comaltitlán. They and the survivors, some from Egypt, El Salvador and Peru, wore a seal on their arms to be identified. Human trafficking has become a business equal to or more profitable than drug and arms trafficking. This Monday, the body of two other migrants from El Salvador was found in a sugarcane field. They had a shot in the head. Meanwhile, organizations and churches have spoken out against the violence. More than three thousand evangelicals gathered two weeks ago in the center of Tapachula to pray and demand a ceasefire. For its part, the diocese has directly accused the Army of having ties to drug trafficking and being involved in crimes of kidnapping and extortion. “Migrants are the poorest of the poor and as a Church we cannot allow this type of abuse and death,” says priest César Cañaveral, administrator of the Belén shelter, in Tapachula.
Three boys have just gotten off a raft on the shore of the Suchiate River, the natural border between Mexico and Guatemala. The fear on their faces and the nervousness make them walk quickly. They are 25, 27 and 30 years old. They only respond that they are from Venezuela and that they fled due to the crisis in their country after the elections. As they disembark, several men on motorcycles approach the migrants and try to escort them. That is usually the step prior to kidnapping. Afterwards, they will be taken to some secluded place and forced to board a transport, others may lock them up directly, just as happened to Yessica and her family.
The authorities, in response to the violence of these weeks, have installed more operations at the exits of the city and the roads that connect with the border municipalities. The Army, the National Guard, the State Prosecutor’s Office and the municipal police stop randomly and search vehicles and their occupants. Among immense fields of green bananas, on the highway that goes to Ciudad Hidalgo, a National Guard checkpoint watches over the cars that slow down. Next to it there is a control of the National Migration Institute (INM). The officers have just stopped a group walking on the side of the road and put them into a van. People are taken to the Siglo XXI migrant detention station, about 40 kilometers north of there. The INM tried to change its image after the tragic death of 40 men in an immigration station in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, however and despite the attempt to whitewash, the place continues to look like what it is: the detention center. of migrants in the country.
Yolimar, 36, has just left the detention center. He has a sad look and a tired body. Despite everything, he jokes with his children and tries to cheer them up. “I thought they were going to have a worse time, but they see all this as an adventure and I try not to let it affect them,” he says while hugging them. She, the four children and her dog Serenata, left Caracas a month ago. Your destination: Chicago; where her husband lives. To get to Tapachula, the family crossed the hell of Darién on foot. A thick jungle between Colombia and Panama from which many do not leave alive. “We saw several dead people. A mother and her daughter died inside a tent and we couldn’t do anything for them. Then, the police in Costa Rica stole $300 from us and now we have run out of money to continue,” he says with sad eyes. Upon arriving in Mexico he decided to turn himself in to Immigration. The INM gave him permission to move around Chiapas until his humanitarian visa process is resolved. However, his idea is to continue north. If she left Chiapas, she could be detained again or even deported to Venezuela.
The capital’s shelters are full and most exceed their capacity, such as the Belén shelter. With a maximum of 150 places, it currently has 270 people accommodated and others are waiting at the door to be attended to. “Migrants have not stopped arriving, but with the application more people began to enter, I would say more than 100%, compared to last year,” says the priest in charge of the shelter.
Despite the high concentration of migrants, the region does not have sufficient infrastructure to serve people in transit. Many of them sleep and survive on the streets, as best they can. Most of these people arrive with the hope of continuing north, although more and more people choose to stay and live in Mexico and seek refugee status in the country. The Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) delivered nearly 129,000 humanitarian visas in 2023, mainly to citizens of Haiti, Honduras, Cuba and Guatemala. “We have noticed that this year the requests are on the rise, we currently serve 400 people every day,” says César Eloa, in charge of the Comar Registration Area, in Tapachula.
The implementation of CBP One from the southern border has allowed us to reduce the concentration of migrants in border cities such as Juárez, Tijuana or Piedras Negras, however, this does not save us from the risks involved on the road. The uncertainty is total. Once the appointment date is assigned, they must appear at the indicated border post by their own means. The procedure remains confusing for many and misinformation is rampant. “The authorities try to tire them out and disorient them so that they give up, but they are going to keep going, even if it costs them their lives,” says the director of the Belén shelter.
Drug traffickers, authorities and opportunists of all kinds take advantage of the lack of information about the processes and try to profit again. A false message has been circulating in WhatsApp groups about a caravan called by the Episcopal Conference and the United States Embassy. Something totally false that both entities deny to this newspaper. “I suppose that when they give me the appointment, an Immigration truck will take us to the border,” says Omar, a Colombian who recently arrived in Tapachula. For many, the procedure is a labyrinth that is difficult to decipher and an impassable virtual wall.