“More than 4,000 migrants on the streets await permission in Tapachula.”

Tapachula Chiapas July 24, 2022

By: Oscar Blue Ramirez

Tapachula-. More than 4,000 migrants are homeless after waiting for more than 3 weeks for a response from the Mexican authorities. On Friday, May 22, the migrants have decided to attend the Human Rights Department to request the protection request and be able to walk to the city of Huixtla at the Cerro Gordo immigration station.

Venezuelan migrant Alexa is currently one of the spokespersons for the migrant community that is stranded in that city. She and 18 leaders of this group arrived at the human rights station to deliver more than 4,000 requests for protection so as not to be interrupted on their journey. to the north.

“There are 646 children, 1,307 women and 2,122 men who have signed this petition, we do not want to cause problems in Mexico, we just want to get through and reach our destination, we have all passed through the jungle and we are fleeing from the current situation in our country” .

A little before delivering the petitions, one of the leaders by the name of Franco, who is a Venezuelan migrant, explains the current street situation they live in.

“It is true that a filter is used in each country to know who enters through each border, but there is also no process and it is a complete mess on the part of the authorities, on social networks they even tell us that hopefully a truck will pass us all over , we do not want to ask for anything for free, we just want to pass and the authorities do not give us free passage”.

The Mexican authorities have been emphatic in communicating that in order to obtain a process, an appointment with the Refugee Commission (COMAR) is also required, which many of the migrants do not have because the appointments offered by said organization require waiting in cases up to 3 months.

Tapachultec residents who live around the migrant camp outside the document regulation station have expressed their discontent and have denounced that there is a lot of garbage and that there are no portable toilets for migrants to relieve themselves, including They have asked the authorities to attend to this situation as soon as possible.

A response from the National Institute of Migration (INAMI) is expected in the following days to resolve the enormous problem that is found in the migrant bottleneck at the south gate.