Every day migrants walk along the roads of Chiapas trying to advance to the border with the United States. Due to lack of papers, they cannot board buses and they venture to go on foot. Photo: Edgar H. Clemente
Tapachula, Chiapas. The Center for Human Dignification Civil Association, which provides legal advice to the migrant population in Chiapas, announced that it will begin with massive protections to avoid the detention and deportation of migrants so that they can continue on their way to the border with the United States.
Luis García Villagrán, coordinator of the CA, explained that lawyers are charging up to 40 thousand pesos to file this jurisdictional appeal but the majority of non-nationals cannot pay this, so the organization will offer it for free.
The activist added that the southern border is saturated and even though hundreds of migrants leave every day, they are also arriving. He said that at the end of October a Caravan left with five thousand non-nationals, but just on Saturday a contingent of three thousand migrants who crossed from Guatemala to Mexico walked from the municipality of Suchiate to Tapachula.
“We are going to ask the federal judges that migrants do not walk, do not take risks, do not lose their lives and that they do not fall prey to organized crime and that they can get on a bus and leave Chiapas,” he said in an interview.
García Villagrán denounced that the National Migration Institute and the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees are not resolving the procedures, or are saturated, and are forcing migrants to walk north and expose themselves to dangers, including crime.
But the organization has recorded cases of migrants who have moved irregularly to the north and are detained in central states such as Veracruz and Puebla and returned to Tapachula.
“The arrests and deportations are arbitrary, there are abuses by the National Immigration Institute. Just last week a Cuban who was going to be deported died,” he commented.
He added that the southern border and in particular Tapachula “is overwhelmed. Migrants have no jobs, no money to eat, and no roof over their heads. Rents are very expensive, there are entire families sleeping in parks, health services are saturated, this is chaos.”
“We want to protect the most vulnerable, those we see walking along the roads wanting to move north are the poorest of the poor, including women and children,” he noted.
The defender announced that he will begin a day of protests, including a demonstration outside the National Palace at the end of November to demand the attention of the Federal Government, and if he is not attended to, he will call for a new mass Caravan for mid-December.
Original article at https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2023/11/20/estados/alistan-amparos-masivos-para-evitar-detencion-y-deportacion-de-migrantes-4651
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.