Migrants complain that asylum or exit visa processing takes too long at Mexico's main migrant processing center in the city of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border.
Under Mexico's overburdened migration system, such visa applicants often wait weeks or months without being able to work.
Migrants lined up along the highway on Monday, sometimes escorted by police. Police were often present to prevent them from blocking the entire highway.
Migrant caravan in Mexico. Photo: AP
Monday's march was one of the largest since June 2022. Previous migrant caravans in 2018 and 2019 drew much greater attention.
“We have been walking for about three months and we will continue walking. In Tapachula, no one is helping us,” said Daniel González, from Venezuela.
González said returning to Venezuela was not an option because of the worsening economic situation there. He said Mexico’s strategy in the past has been to wait for marchers to tire and then offer to take them home or to smaller processing centers.
Irineo Mújica, one of the march’s organizers, said migrants are often forced to live on the streets in squalid conditions in Tapachula. He is calling for transit visas to allow migrants to cross Mexico and reach the US border.
The plight of Leonel Olveras, 45, a Honduran migrant, is emblematic of the plight of the marchers. “They don’t give out papers here,” Olveras said of Tapachula. “They make us wait months. It’s too long.”
Mújica later wrote in a message that the group had only traveled about 14 kilometers and had stopped overnight in the town of Alvaro Obregon. He said the group planned to try to go further in the coming days, but had to take into account the number of women and children.
Mai Van (according to AP)
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