Mexico is feeling the pressure of continuing migration from South America

At a shelter in Mexico City, the nun in charge of the facilities had to make another difficult announcement to the mothers and children who arrived on Wednesday: There was no more room. In this center, which was built to house 100 employees, 500 migrants were already crowded.

Near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, a group of frustrated people attacked a refugee aid office Monday after waiting weeks for an appointment to obtain necessary documents that would allow them to travel farther north.

In Tijuana, all of the city’s 32 shelters were full this week, as people from about 70 countries waited for an asylum appointment in the United States or a chance to cross the border unnoticed.

Similar scenes are being repeated across the country, as Mexico’s immigration system is overwhelmed by a wave of desperate people trying to reach the north. The continuing influx has caused a heterogeneous response in Mexico, ranging from closing northbound railway lines to busing people to areas with smaller migrant populations.

US authorities are also facing a new wave of illegal border crossings that are draining government resources and hampering the work of local authorities as thousands of migrants are released from federal custody. On Wednesday, thousands of people crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, prompting the mayor of that city to declare a state of emergency and deploy 800 active-duty military personnel to help deal with the arrivals.

In Mexico, the population of South America exceeds that of Central America for the first time since these data were recorded.

Mexican authorities registered 140,671 migrants from South American countries in the first seven months of the year, with record numbers of people from Venezuela and Ecuador, compared to 102,106 from Central America.

These changes in migration patterns are particularly evident in the Darien Forest, the narrow strip of land linking Colombia and Panama. Venezuelans and Ecuadorians are the nationalities that travel the most there, with boarding migrant crossings becoming a multi-million dollar business.

In 2022, nearly 250,000 people crossed the forest, an annual record. This year, that number has risen to 380,000 as of September 18, according to Panamanian authorities.

There are several factors driving mass migration. In Venezuela, the economy is once again in crisis after showing signs of some mixed improvements. In Ecuador, rates of drug-related violence have skyrocketed, and the recent assassination of a presidential candidate has left many citizens desperate for improvement.

Guatemalan authorities say they have seen a noticeable increase in the number of people in the past three weeks and plan to send more soldiers and police to reinforce border security.

Although there are no official estimates, the International Rescue Committee reported that about 5,000 people arrive daily in southern Mexico to be treated by the refugee aid agency in the city of Tapachula. The exact number of thousands of people who fled the refugee office and made their way north illegally is unknown.

So far this year, the agency has done just that He received an unprecedented amount Out of 99,881 asylum requests, according to data published by the government. Mexico is expected to receive a record 150,000 asylum applications in 2023, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In 2022, Mexico processed 118,570 applications.

For Rafael Velasquez, Mexico director for the International Rescue Committee, what is most concerning are the needs of people entering through the southern region of the country.

He said his staff had been providing legal guidance, but now they are seeing people asking for water, food and very basic care, “and that is very worrying for us.” Normally, a migration peak in Mexico looks like a chain reaction from south to north, but he stressed that they are witnessing concentrations of migrants simultaneously across the country.

According to experts, the migration situation is further complicated by the National Institute of Migration, which has been affected since a detention center in Ciudad Juárez caught fire, causing the death of 39 migrants in March. Francisco Jarduño Yanez, the organization’s director, faces criminal charges related to the fire, but continues to run the institute. Most immigration detention centers are practically closed pending review by the National Human Rights Commission.

Additionally, Mexico’s Supreme Court in March ruled that detaining migrants for more than 36 hours was unconstitutional because being undocumented is an administrative, not criminal, offense.

With a host of immigration agents and tens of thousands of National Guard troops, Mexico continues to prevent large numbers of people across the country from heading north: 317,334 in the first seven months of the year. But most have been released in Mexico: Deportations fell by 55%, to 34,557, during the first seven months of 2023, compared with the same period last year, according to government data.

On Wednesday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the world had taken the “wrong approach” to migration by focusing on stemming the flow and militarizing borders rather than addressing the root causes that force people from their homes.

“People don’t leave their countries because they want to, they do it out of necessity,” he said.

Although the Mexican Immigration Institute has not announced any policy changes, lawyers and aid workers said officials rarely detain people and instead temporarily detain them for up to 36 hours on buses or temporary facilities to send them south where they are released with ” Voluntary departure. Notices asking them to leave the country. But most of them turn around and try again.

“My feeling is that they are just making it up as they go along,” said Gretchen Kuehner, director of Mexico’s Institute for Women in Migration, referring to the country’s migration agency. “They are inventing a series of other ways to deter migrants.”

The National Migration Institute did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

At bus stations across northern Mexico, workers have been ordered to stop selling tickets to migrants because of threats posed by both law enforcement and kidnappings by organized crime groups, according to Ari Sawyer, who researches border issues at Human Rights Watch.

“We see Mexican police, National Guard and immigration agents boarding buses at checkpoints,” Sawyer said.

Migrants and bus line workers reported agents demanding payment from migrants to continue their journey north.

According to lawyers and immigration experts, immigration officials also require people to pay sums of money during short periods of detention on National Immigration Institute buses. In some cases, they tell migrants that the bus is headed to one city and then drop them off in another place without telling them.

The unpredictable nature of busing people is often used by officials to keep people away from high-concentration areas such as Tapachula, cities on the US border, as well as Ciudad de Mexico.

This tactic wears people down during multiple trips across Mexico where they face theft, extortion, kidnapping and sexual violence by officials and organized crime groups, Kohner said.

Recently, Grupo México, which operates several of the country’s railways, temporarily grounded 60 trains on northbound routes after nearly six people were injured or killed while traveling illegally on the trains. Immigration officials also announced that they would increase inspections along the railway lines.

People trying to reach the North often spent days traveling on a freight train known as the “Beast” or “Death Train” because so many fell, lost limbs, or died. This train drops them off in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The company issued Statement Tuesday afternoon Saying it would “temporarily suspend operations on the affected routes to protect the physical safety of migrants.”

The National Migration Institute said on Wednesday that about 3,000 migrants have tried to reach the northern border by train so far this month. The agency added that it would deploy more federal agents along the railway lines to discourage migrants from risking their lives.

These dangerous and stressful stays in Mexico make many people willing to attempt the risky illegal trip to the United States.

“We have reached a breaking point,” Sawyer said. “People are losing hope.”

Emiliano Rodriguez Mega And Elda Cantu They cooperated with information from Mexico City. Judy Garcia from Gothenburg, Sweden; Julie Turkowitz From Bogotá, Colombia; Allen Corpus From Tijuana, and Eileen Sullivan From Washington.