(Tuxtla Gutiérrez) A group of a dozen migrants sewed their mouths shut on Tuesday in front of the premises of the National Migration Institute, in southern Mexico, to demand papers allowing them to reach the north of the country, according to local media.
Posted at 8:01 p.m.
These migrants have been demonstrating for a week in Tapachula, in the state of Chiapas (south), to obtain humanitarian passes allowing them to reach the border with the United States further north.
“We are demonstrating to be allowed to arrive in Monterrey (north) and then cross. But they gave me an appointment in three or four months and I don’t have the money to wait that long,” Venezuelan Rafael Hernández, who along with other migrants from Haiti and Cuba demand a solution.
According to the activist Irineo Mújica, who accompanies this demonstration, the migratory authorities “do not respond” and “do nothing to solve the problems of regularization of migrants”.
Dozens of migrants, mainly from Central America, cross Mexico to seek asylum in the United States and flee violence or poverty in their countries.
The Mexican authorities have tightened their controls in an attempt to curb this migratory flow, which has increased since the election of Democrat Joe Biden as President of the United States.
On December 9, a truck carrying 160 illegal immigrants crashed into a bridge on a road in Chiapas, killing 56, most of them from Guatemala.