Tired of Waiting in Southern Mexico, Thousands of Migrants March North
Desperate for work and fleeing poverty and violence, a caravan of nearly 4,000 migrants recently decided to march out of the southern city of Tapachula after waiting for asylum applications to be processed for as long as a year
Landwebs
Desperate for work and fleeing poverty and violence, a caravan of several thousand migrants recently decided to march out of the southern-border city of Tapachula after waiting for asylum applications to be processed for as long as a year, reports the Washington Post. While Mexico’s National Guard forces tried to stop them, the contingent pushed through, hoping to eventually reach Mexico City.
As of September, 2021, authorities had received over 90,000 asylum claims this year, according to official data, roughly 70 percent of which are processed in Tapachula, where the country’s largest immigration detention center is located. The massive number of applications has overwhelmed an already flawed and underfunded immigration system, especially the agency responsible for processing asylum claims. There are about 4,000 migrants headed toward Mexico’s capital, where many hope their asylum claims will be expedited. To deal with the massive volume of asylum applications in Tapachula, the Mexican government has turned an Olympic stadium into a temporary processing center, with waiting lines of up to 7,000 people a day. Activists and human rights groups are warning that Mexico is resorting to arbitrary detentions, deportations and other questionable tactics as it grapples with the rising number of migrants arriving at its border.
