Migrants walking in line during the night while a car provide them with some light. Photo: AP/Felix Marquez.
Mexican agents intercepted more than 115,000 migrants in transit throughout the country in the first three and a half months of 2022. Most were from Honduras, Guatemala, and Cuba, reported the National Institute of Migration (INM).
“The INM of the Ministry of the Interior (Interior) rescued 115,379 foreign migrants between January 1 and April 13 during their entry and transit through Mexican territory,” the statement said.
Of those detained, almost 25% are women (27,862), and 15% are minors (10,226 boys and 7,423 girls).
To define their legal situation in the country, the INM identified 21,965 who came from Honduras, 21,954 from Guatemala, and 15,907 from Cuba.
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By nationality, the other three largest groups came from Nicaragua and El Salvador (8,270 and 6,931, respectively). More than 40,000 came from other nations: 2,754 from Asia, 2,140 from Europe, 1,282 from Africa, and 12 from Oceania.
Among the minors, there were 3,544 who traveled alone and who remain under the protection of the National System for Integral Family Development.
The arrests were made “in greater numbers” in three states in the southeast (Chiapas, Tabasco and Veracruz), on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, in Baja California (northwest), and in he country’s capital.
On the other hand, in the state of Chiapas (southeast) a migrant caravan named Via Crucis intended to walk towards the country’s capital, but reached an agreement with INM authorities to obtain “humanitarian visas.”
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A group of some 700 people of Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, and Cuban nationality left the city of Tapachula, on the border with Guatemala, to denounce the lack of attention to their asylum requests.
On April 4, the INM reported the dissolution of the first Holy Week caravan made up of a similar number of people.
The number of migrants who arrived at the US-Mexico border in March this year rose to more than 221,300, according to US authorities, the highest monthly amount in more than two decades, and the highest number for the third month of the year since 2000.
Featured image: Migrants walking in a line during the night while a car provides them with some light. Photo: AP/Felix Marquez.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
