Several families of migrants from Venezuela who lived in a park in Mérida, Yucatán, and were later taken to a shelter, was an apparently isolated event in the Yucatán Peninsula. However, the abandonment of the region by authorities from the National Migration Institute (INM) would be part of Mexico’s strategy to dissolve caravans and prevent them from reaching the United States.
Just a week ago, Mérida migrants were practically living in the park of the México neighborhood, where they were struggling to meet their basic needs, sleeping in a kiosk and selling items for their sustenance.
Of a total of 160 people without documents who arrived in Mexico through the southern border, 83, including children, were brought to Yucatán, and according to their statements, INM personnel abandoned them through deception.
They reported that they left Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, and reported that the INM offered to take them to Mexico City but abandoned them in Mérida, Yucatán, about 1,500 kilometers from the capital.
After eight days sleeping in said Mérida park, the group of migrants found temporary asylum at the Despertares shelter.
Now, a report from El País that cites this event in Yucatán, would reveal that it was not a failed action by the immigration authorities in Mexico, “coyotes” or “polleros”, as they are also called, but rather part of that strategy.
El País indicates that buses loaded with migrants also arrived this week in Michoacán and Guerrero; and emphasizes that it is part of the Mexican Government’s tactics to disrupt the caravans that left Tapachula, Chiapas last week.
The work of journalist Almudena Barragán points out that many people agreed to be transferred three weeks after arriving in Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, in the Isthmus region, tired of walking, sick, and without resources.
In the case of those who arrived in Michoacán and Guerrero, the Ministry of the Interior and the INM offered a humanitarian visa to those people to transit through the country in exchange for dismantling the caravan and being transported voluntarily.
It is estimated that between 200 and 300 people a day are being transported in buses to different parts of the country, far from Mexico City, where the caravans intended to arrive. Most seek to reach the United States before President-elect Donald Trump implements his anti-immigration policy.
TYT Newsroom
