TAPACHULA — A new caravan of migrants left southern Mexico for the United States this Monday in the hope of reaching the northern country before Republican Donald Trump assumes the presidency.
The column advanced through Mexican Tapachula, in Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, shortly before dawn to head for the highway.
“We have to hurry up, we don’t know what measures Trump is going to take,” said Venezuelan Alexander Altuve, 38.
Trump, winner of the presidential election on November 5, plans to declare a state of emergency in the United States and call on the army to carry out “the largest deportation operation” when he takes office on January 20.
The caravan, which is the third since the November 5 elections in the United States, is made up mainly of Venezuelans, most of them young people, as well as families with small children.
“We have decided to walk because in our country the situation is very, very critical (…) We decided to do this walk to look for a better future,” commented José Luis Fernández, a 35-year-old Cuban.
The 78-year-old magnate calls the entry of migrants without a visa an “invasion” and threatens to apply 25% tariffs on Mexican imports if the government does not contain the arrival of undocumented foreigners.
Millions of immigrants have entered
Around eleven million people lived and worked in an irregular situation in the United States before the arrival of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House. But the figure could have doubled with the policies of the Democratic administration that has allowed the entry of almost 11 million undocumented immigrants due to flexible policies at the border.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) authorities They record the encounter of a total of 10,825,387 migrants during the Biden-Harris administration. They are joined by about 2 million undocumented immigrants who managed to evade the authorities migratory.
Migrants usually organize caravans to pressure the authorities in Mexico to provide safe-conduct passes that allow them to later advance on their own in Mexican territory, without fear of being deported.
While the advance of thousands of migrants towards the United States is announced, Texas offered Trump more than 500 hectares of land near the border with Mexico to build migrant detention centers within the framework of its mass deportation policies once he takes office. starting from the month of January.
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham sent a letter to the magnate, dated the day before, in which she says she is “fully prepared” to reach an agreement on the matter with the Department of Homeland Security, the Immigration and Enforcement Service. US Customs or Border Patrol.
