Thousands piled up for coverage move north as leaders gather for Biden’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles
Liozanys Comeja attributes his survival to his cup of Chihuahua tea, Mia. Originally from Venezuela, Comeja moved to Colombia five years ago, but made the decision to leave her new life this month because of the new burden of living. He crossed the Darien Gap, an infamous stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama, with Mia in her backpack, eventually crossing 8 countries. Now, Comeja hopes the dog will help her on the last and exhausting level of her journey.
Comeja joined 11,000 others leaving Tapachula, a sweltering city on the Guatemala-Mexico border, on Monday and heading north toward the United States. He will depart as leaders from across the hemisphere gather in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas.
“Every time I get discouraged, Mia calms me down,” Comeja said. Upon reaching the U. S. border, Comeja plans to reach the Rio Grande on foot.
This is not the first migrant caravan to leave Tapachula, however, it is the largest ever recorded in Mexico: its numbers are expected to grow in the coming days, and may succeed in another 15,000 people, plus Mia the Chihuahua.
“This is the mass human migration I’ve noticed in at least 10 years,” said Luis Villagrán, caravan organizer and director of the nonprofit Center for Human Dignity.
Nearly 70 percent of its members are women and children, ranging from seventy to babies, Villagrán said. Curled up together, they try to walk all México. La most have only one pair of shoes; some, just plastic flip-flops. The path they will take, known as the coastal path, can be difficult to cross due to landslides left by Hurricane Agatha, as well as the dominant presence of the sun.
The largest number of migrants in the caravan come from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, 3 countries whose authoritarian leaders Joe Biden deliberately refused to invite to the summit. But there are also Haitians, Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans and even from India, Bangladesh and several African countries.
Earlier this month, Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM) wrote to Villagrán, expressing sympathy for the caravan’s members and pledging to help the most vulnerable among them. The letter also acknowledges that the caravan is the result of the super tsunami of migration of only over each and every country in the Americas to the United States in recent years, attributing this migration to the continent’s high rates of violence and economic instability.
This is a startling reaction from the leaders of a bureaucracy that migrants describe as systematically unnecessary and even intentionally dysfunctional.
But the letter also marks the first time the Mexican government has responded to a caravan before it leaves, and possibly signifies an update in how the government responds to giant migrant teams.
“Immigration is used as a political tool. These women and girls are like currencies to exchange. It is very imaginable that [Mexican President Andrés Manuel López] Obrador needs to use this caravan to look like a humanitarian before the Summit of the Americas,” Villagran said.
But caravan members are well aware of the potential risks they face. In recent months, Mexico’s National Guard has reacted increasingly violently toward migrants. When Villagrán was leading a small caravan in April, he was beaten and damaged by several teeth. through National Guard troops.
In Tapachula, the National Guard is used to surround, detain and feed teams of rebellious migrants outside the city’s INM office, where others occasionally wait for weeks or months for the humanitarian visa needed to leave the city.
On Tuesday, thousands of others gathered in downtown Tapachula to write their names on a list Villagrán would send to the INM to obtain visas for the group. At one point, an altercation broke out because migrants feared others would make it to the list before they did. and be left behind.
Before their departure, Villagrán and the migrants are calling for humanitarian visas to be issued immediately, so the organization can pass through immigration checkpoints without being detained or attacked by the Mexican National Guard, as happened in April. the visa-free checkpoints are sent back to Tapachula and forced to wait months for papers that may never arrive.
Over the past three months, migrants have flocked to Tapachula’s parks and shelters at two to three times the rate. Migrant shelters that once housed no more than 400 people now house only about 2,000. Bathrooms are overflowing, food is scarce to only a ball of beans and migrants sleep in corridors or sweatshirts scattered in the jungle.
Grace, another traveler from Venezuela, said she only hoped her five-year-old daughter, Bláiche, wouldn’t see the scenes they experienced in the crowded shelter.
“Of course I will join the caravan! I will leave as quickly as I can,” he said. “This position is a trap. “