Haitian migrants flee Mexican state of Chiapas along dangerous routes

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Hundreds of migrants stranded in Tapachula, a municipality on the border with Guatemala, cross the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, most of them desperate due to the lack of response from the Mexican government regarding their immigration procedures and refugee applications.

After weeks and even months stranded in southern Mexico, they have begun to make their way on foot or in pick-up trucks through the paths and rivers of the municipalities of Motozintla, Chicomuselo, La Concordia, Villaflores, Ocozocoautla, Tuxtla or Malpaso.

While the operations to curb their passage continue, and after the 4 migrant caravans recently thwarted by authorities – criticized for their use of force – they chose these less common routes.

Most of them carry the paperwork they completed at the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (COMAR) or at the National Institute of Migration (INM).

Others claim that they have been granted refugee status, but allege that they were unable to secure the final certificate.

The region is struggling with a historic flow of 147,000 undocumented migrants detected in Mexico from January through August, triple the 2020 figure, and a record 212,000 undocumented migrants detained in July alone by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).

A COMPLEX ROUTE

Unable to travel in a caravan on the highways, the migrants now cross the Sierra Madre de Chiapas through several municipalities and even the La Angostura dam by boat.

Mark is Haitian and had been stranded in Tapachula for 20 days, along with thousands of other people, until he decided it was “unnecessary” to continue waiting to legalize his situation, ending his few savings.

“We don’t request permits, if I ask for a permit I don’t go, I don’t pass. Many Haitians are spending lots of money for a permit,” the man explains.

For Isma Stanley, a young Haitian father of a boy, the stay in Tapachula was frustrating.

“I want to leave Chiapas to go up to Mexico City. There is work in the city and I’ve been stuck in Tapachula for 2 months doing nothing,” he says in front of a bus station in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital of Chiapas.

A situation similar to that of Jackson Dominique, who at 27 years of age is traveling in a group of 6, including 3 children.

They have been traveling through the region for days, on foot and in vehicles, and are about to cross into the eastern state of Veracruz after evading security forces.

“I climbed a hill carrying a little girl to avoid migration,” Jackson recounts as he waits for a bus.

REACHING THE NORTH

Some 13,000 migrants, mostly from Haiti, are estimated to have recently been detained by U.S. immigration authorities in a makeshift camp under the international bridge that connects Del Rio with Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila.

In a press conference from Del Rio, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday reiterated that his country’s borders “are not open” and that migrants “should not set out on the dangerous journey” to the border.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard on Tuesday said that he spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the “need for a regional solution” to migration issues.

Haitians are coming from Brazil and Chile after the DHS in August announced an extension of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, a statement that traffickers are misrepresenting, according to the Foreign Minister.

He also suggested humanitarian support for Haiti due to the political crisis following president Jovenel Moise’s assassination last July and the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that left over 2,000 dead and 12,000 injured in August.

Leticia Calderón, PhD in Social Sciences and expert in migration, explained that Mexico is facing a growing migratory crisis, partly helped by the end of harsher restrictions due to the pandemic.

But the main problem is that many migrants fall into human trafficking networks, she added.

“There is a system that feeds forced mobility to exploit cheap labor. And although there is also a system that tells them (migrants) that they can’t come, ultimately there are ways to get in and people know it,” Calderón added.