The first deportation of Venezuelan migrants, by the United States government, surprised this Thursday hundreds of compatriots and migrants of other nationalities who are stranded in the Mexican city of Tapachula, Chiapas state, southern border of Mexico and who seek to reach to the American Union.
The Venezuelans asked the US government to grant them an extension so that their compatriots, stranded in Tapachula, are allowed to reach the northern border.
This Thursday, the Secretary of National Security of the United States, Alejandro Mayorkas, warned Venezuelan migrants that they will fail if they try to arrive irregularly in the United States and invited them to seek one of the protection visas announced by the government.
Mayorkas expressed himself in this sense a day following the United States and Mexico closed an agreement by which the US government will offer 24,000 visas for Venezuelans and will return to Mexican territory all those who cross the border irregularly.
However, in Tapachula, migrants from Venezuela and other countries announced that hundreds of people are coming from Venezuela as well as from Colombia, Nicaragua and other nationalities with the aim of reaching the United States.
They prepare shelter
Given the possible return of Venezuelans, the XXI Century Migration Station, a place established by the National Institute of Migration of Mexico for the temporary accommodation of migrants who cannot prove their regular immigration status, announced this Thursday that they are preparing to receive hundreds of migrants. Venezuelans.
The Venezuelan Joan Blanco told EFE that “he is desperate and uncertain, following the lack of information” and regretted that the United States government “has not set a deadline” for them to enter US territory.
“It affects us in every way, because we are already in Mexico and we had free passage and now we no longer have it, they closed it to us, we ask that they find a solution, because we are going to continue advancing and complete the path to the United States” , he exposed.
Meanwhile, a Venezuelan migrant who preferred anonymity said that this news shocked them because she and her compatriots come from “a country where they have nothing and have begun their journey to seek a better future. Why are we going to return to Venezuela?
Most of these Venezuelan migrants have entered Mexico irregularly, through the border limits with Guatemala and have reached Tapachula, bypassing the immigration checkpoints in Central America and Mexico.
In Tapachula, in recent hours the migrants have not warned that a caravan is going to leave because either they do not know what to do, or they are going to wait for more migrants to organize themselves, while agents from the National Institute of Migration and the Mexican Army began to carry I just finished operations in the center of Tapachula.
Regarding the new United States program, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard explained that the undocumented Venezuelans that the United States deports to Mexico have already passed through Mexican territory, so they are not new migrants.
He stressed that “the most important thing” is that it allows Venezuelans to carry out their paperwork remotely without having to undertake “the journey” to the US border.
In addition, he assured that the number of Venezuelans in Mexico is already higher than that of Central Americans, and explained that many have requested refuge in the country.
The US plan is similar to the one already in place for citizens of Ukraine, which grants a two-year temporary status to those with a US sponsor.
The US announcement comes amid a surge in arrivals of Venezuelans at the border with Mexico. Between October 2021 and August of this year, more than 150,000 Venezuelans have been arrested on the southern border of the United States, compared to 50,499 in the same period last year.