Always your country first
Migrants will leave in a caravan on election day in the United States due to insecurity in Mexico
Oscar El Blue
The increasing crime rate and the climate of insecurity on Mexico’s southern border have led hundreds of migrants to organize a new caravan, which will leave on November 5, 2024, coinciding with the day of the elections in the United States. The caravan’s meeting point will be Bicentennial Park, on the border of Tapachula, from where they plan to travel along the coastal highway to the capital Mexico City.
The migrants will seek to cross Mexico from Tapachula to reach the northern border, facing multiple threats along the way, while uncertainty persists over immigration policies in the United States in the face of contrasting projects between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, contenders for the presidency of the North American nation.
The caravan, made up mostly of citizens from Central and South America, hopes to gather about 5,000 people, according to activist and observer Luis Rey García Villagrán, who noted that migrants do not find in Tapachula the minimum security conditions or job opportunities to remain in the city.
The main city on Mexico’s southern border, Tapachula, has become the municipality with the highest perception of insecurity in the country, amid the dispute by organized crime to control drug and human trafficking from South America.
Nine out of 10 inhabitants of this city, 91.9%, perceive that this city is unsafe, which places it in first place nationally in the National Survey of Urban Public Security (ENSU) published this week by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).
Migrant Stories
Stories like that of Jairo Alexís Trillo, a Peruvian migrant, illustrate the climate of danger, who was assaulted with a machete while trying to take refuge in Tapachula.
Trillo and other migrants sleep in the plaza of the ‘Mariachis’, where they maintain nightly guards to protect each other.
Separately, Didimo Caso, from Bogotá, Colombia, expressed his intention to join the caravan and shared his exhausting journey to Mexico. “On this walk there are children, pregnant women, and people have treated us well along the way,” he commented.
Written by: Oscar El Blue
The caravan, made up mostly of citizens from Central and South America, hopes to bring together some 5,000 people.