Wonder if they ever thought of CLOSING THE BORDER, and saving millions in costs of trying to control these invaders?
Much more at
NPR ^ | 06/14/2019 | James Fredrick
Rosa Hidalia Palacios fled El Salvador in April. She crossed into Mexico from Guatemala without a hitch, riding on a little raft that ferries people and goods back and forth. A few hundred yards down the Suchiate River from the rafting route, Mexican immigration enforcement agents watched idly from the official border crossing.
Palacios hasn't made it much farther than the border, as dozens of migration checkpoints cover all roads leading north. She is stuck in a nearby city, Tapachula, Mexico, waiting in line outside the little office of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid.
"I don't have a single peso," she says, sipping a cup of coffee. "Some nuns came by this morning and gave us coffee and bread."
She's sitting on a rain-soaked piece of cardboard, her bed for the last few nights.
"We're suffering," she says. "I've been on the street for a month. Before we were sleeping in the central park but immigration authorities started coming by and rounding up migrants."
Migrants consider the area around the government's refugee office one of the few safe places in Tapachula. Hundreds of people — most of them from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, but also many from Cuba, the Congo, Cameroon, Haiti and other countries — wait there. Most of those outside the refugee office say they are fleeing danger back home and are filing asylum claims that would give them legal status in Mexico.
Last week, the U.S. and Mexican governments reached a deal to reduce Central American migration to the United States. Mexico agreed to strengthen its immigration enforcement and also let migrants wait for U.S. asylum on its side of the border, in exchange for avoiding tariffs threatened by Trump. The June 7 agreement gave Mexico 45 days to show results in stopping migrants from traveling north.
But Mexico's refugee commission is already overwhelmed: There are only 48 staff members in the entire country and the commission expects to receive 60,000 asylum claims this year, a number that may rise with further U.S.-Mexico negotiations.
Much more at
NPR ^ | 06/14/2019 | James Fredrick
Rosa Hidalia Palacios fled El Salvador in April. She crossed into Mexico from Guatemala without a hitch, riding on a little raft that ferries people and goods back and forth. A few hundred yards down the Suchiate River from the rafting route, Mexican immigration enforcement agents watched idly from the official border crossing.
Palacios hasn't made it much farther than the border, as dozens of migration checkpoints cover all roads leading north. She is stuck in a nearby city, Tapachula, Mexico, waiting in line outside the little office of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid.
"I don't have a single peso," she says, sipping a cup of coffee. "Some nuns came by this morning and gave us coffee and bread."
She's sitting on a rain-soaked piece of cardboard, her bed for the last few nights.
"We're suffering," she says. "I've been on the street for a month. Before we were sleeping in the central park but immigration authorities started coming by and rounding up migrants."
Migrants consider the area around the government's refugee office one of the few safe places in Tapachula. Hundreds of people — most of them from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, but also many from Cuba, the Congo, Cameroon, Haiti and other countries — wait there. Most of those outside the refugee office say they are fleeing danger back home and are filing asylum claims that would give them legal status in Mexico.
Last week, the U.S. and Mexican governments reached a deal to reduce Central American migration to the United States. Mexico agreed to strengthen its immigration enforcement and also let migrants wait for U.S. asylum on its side of the border, in exchange for avoiding tariffs threatened by Trump. The June 7 agreement gave Mexico 45 days to show results in stopping migrants from traveling north.
But Mexico's refugee commission is already overwhelmed: There are only 48 staff members in the entire country and the commission expects to receive 60,000 asylum claims this year, a number that may rise with further U.S.-Mexico negotiations.
