The Migrant Caravan for Freedom 2025 is a contingent of hundreds of people leaving Tapachula, Chiapas, on October 1, 2025, with the initial intention of reaching Mexico City. The name “For Freedom” is a slogan that reflects how Tapachula has become a migrant prison due to delays in issuing documents and the extortion suffered by migrants at the hands of officials from the National Institute of Migration (INM) and the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR). Here are some notes.
Luis García Villagrán, founder of the Centro de Dignificación Humana A.C., denounced that procedures that should be free can cost between 8,000 pesos just to enter the offices and that a favorable asylum decision can cost 45,000 pesos (El Orbe, October 1, 2025). This leaves thousands of people without access to asylum and reflects a system of corruption and impunity in Mexico’s immigration and refugee system. Villagrán argues that the federal government has closed the legal channels for regularization, forcing them to form caravans.
According to the newspaper 14ymedio, the caravan is made up of a group of more than 1,500 migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador, Haiti, and Cuba. Nearly 500 are Cuban (Salinas, October 2, 2025). Many have been in Tapachula for months with the intention of obtaining immigration status. Cuban Yamila Sarmiento said she had been waiting eight months for an appointment with COMAR and decided to join because “there is no life for migrants in Tapachula” (Salinas, October 2, 2025). Other testimonies claim that those who pay lawyers or officials get an interview quickly, while those who do not have money are left out (Salinas, October 2, 2025).
Migrants march because they seek to regularize their stay, not just reach the United States. Some propose staying in the Mexican capital or northern cities to find employment. The caravan carries a banner that reads “With papers we can contribute more to Mexico” and asks the government to grant them humanitarian visas with temporary permits (Salinas, October 2, 2025). Many do not want to go to the United States due to the tightening of U.S. policies following Trump’s return. Along the way, they hope to save money and/or continue with their paperwork in the country (Avelar, October 2, 2025).
To make progress, migrants organize two shifts, one between the afternoon and early morning to travel, and another at midday to rest. The logic is that walking in the south of the country in hot conditions can be much more tiring when the sun is out. Some people have bicycles and motorcycles to transport women and children. Along the route from Tapachula to Huehuetán, Huixtla, and Escuintla, civil organizations and state authorities have offered them water and medical assistance, but the aid is limited. After three days of walking, the caravan arrived in Escuintla, about 75 kilometers from Tapachula, to rest before continuing on to Mapastepec (Clemente, October 4, 2025).
The physical effort has taken its toll. La Jornada reported that, after three days of walking, pregnant women and children are suffering from fatigue, dehydration, and discomfort due to days of up to ten hours in 30° heat and torrential rain. Lydia Quevedo, a Cuban woman three months pregnant, said that there are no places to buy water and that she only received first aid after fainting. Another migrant explained that while he waited in Tapachula for his appointment at COMAR, he earned 1,300 pesos for 12-hour days with no days off. Other migrants spoke of scams by lawyers and low-paying jobs south of the border (Clemente, October 4, 2025).
President Claudia Sheinbaum reported that the government will follow up on the caravan: “It will be monitored, and humanitarian support will be provided. They will be given facilities to return to their country if they wish or to have an opportunity in Mexico. This has allowed us, since we came into office, to ensure that no caravans reach the northern border, and this will continue to be the case” (Guadarrama, October 2, 2025). Nevertheless, Morena member Carlos González Moreno denied migrants who plan to rest in Escuintla’s Central Park on Saturday and Sunday to wait for the migrants who were left behind the right to stay there (Quinteros and Ángel López, October 3, 2025).
*Momoxca, internationalist, writer, and migrantologist.
Original text by *Victor Villareal Cabello published in La Jornada Morelos on October 7th, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.
Migrant Caravan Decides Not to Return to Tapachula and Continues Toward Mexico City
Tapachula, Chiapas. Members of the migrant caravan “For Freedom” rejected the offer from the National Institute of Migration to return to Tapachula and resume their regularization processes before the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance.
The majority of foreigners decided to continue walking with the intention of advancing to the center of the country in search of better job opportunities and continuing their process there.
Only about a hundred migrants accepted the proposal, so they boarded INM vehicles to be taken from Mapastepec, where they arrived on Monday after traveling 109 kilometers since their departure from Tapachula on Wednesday, October 1.
“Immigration came and only offered a deal to those who had Comar proceedings, and to return them to Tapachula, but most of us are without any proceedings, and we are going to keep going,” said Cuban Rebeca García by telephone.
She believes that the immigration authorities’ intention is to divide the caravan, but she assured that it will continue because while some leave, others join in each of the municipalities they pass through.
“If we continue moving forward through more towns, there will be more people waiting. In Tuxtla Gutiérrez alone, there are a thousand migrants who want to join. Every time we pass through a town, a hundred more join. No one is going back; everyone wants to come along,” added the islander, who is traveling with her husband.
The migrants decided to undertake the exodus on the grounds that jobs are scarce and poorly paid on the southern border, and that they have been going to the Comar for up to a year without receiving a response to their asylum applications or having them denied.
The situation is complicated, they say, because without income, it is impossible to pay rent and buy food, forcing them to live in extremely precarious conditions.
They say they left their countries in search of better opportunities and to help their families who remain behind, so they intend to travel to other parts of the country such as Mexico City and cities in the north where wages are better.
“We need you to please give us permission to go up there; we don’t want a visa or anything else, just permission to go up to Mexico City and from there each of us will go our separate ways to different places,” insisted the Cuban woman.
For now, they have given up on the American dream due to the hardening of policies by US President Donald Trump, who has reinforced security on the border with Mexico and implemented raids to carry out mass deportations.
The migrants will resume their walk at midnight on Tuesday toward Pijijiapan, the next municipality on the route along the Mexico 200 highway.
Original text by Edgar Clemente published in La Jornada on October 7th, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.