Honduran First Lady leads delegation to Mexico’s southern border

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Honduran Presidential House on Tuesday (7) announced in a statement that the Migrant Assistance Task Force delegation will visit Mexican southern border to “ensure that the protocols established” between the two countries are being met and that “dignified attention” is provided to Hondurans who try to cross the region in their attempt to reach the United States.

The delegation to be led by the wife of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández will be joined by consuls from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries that make up the Central American Northern Triangle, and representatives of Mexican institutions involved in the issue, it said.

The work agenda includes visits to shelters, migratory centers through which thousands of Hondurans have tried to reach the United States, and meetings with high-ranking Mexican officials.

The Honduran First Lady’s two-day visit will end in Mexico City, where she will hold a number of meetings with Mexican immigration authorities.

According to the agenda, Garcia will meet with the undersecretary for Latin America and the Caribbean Maximiliano Reyes, the head of the General Directorate of the National System for the Integral Development of Families in Mexico City Estela Peralta, and the National Migration Institute commissioner Francisco Garduño, among others.

According to figures from the Honduran Consular and Migration Observatory, Mexican migration authorities have repatriated 38,383 Hondurans to the Central American country this year, including 4,543 minors, some of them unaccompanied.

The Honduran consular network on the migratory route through Mexico ensures that Hondurans “are treated humanely and that their state of health is safeguarded, in order to avoid infection due to the pandemic,” according to the Honduran Presidency.

In early August, the Migrant Assistance Task Force toured the border city of McAllen, Texas (USA), where they visited the migrant processing center in Donna and the Anzalduas International Bridge in Reynosa (Mexico).

The Honduran authorities in August saw “first-hand the situation of our compatriots and how the migratory crisis currently experienced on the border is being addressed,” according to the report.