- Civil organizations say that this increase is due to the inflation that the country is facing, as well as the migratory flow | Photo: EFE
Inflation and the migration flow have caused the cost of maintaining a migrant stranded on Mexico’s southern border to triple, according to calculations by the National Chamber of Commerce (Canaco) in Tapachula.
Jorge Zúñiga Rodríguez, president of Canaco in Tapachula, said the cost of supporting a migrant rose to 1,200 Mexican pesos (66.6 dollars) per day, which represents 200% more than the 400 Mexican pesos (22.2 dollars) available in 2016, before the start of the migrant caravans.
“It is basically the cost of lodging, even if it is in a migration base, it has a cost that is absorbed: food, health, transportation and this type of things, and in the case of municipalities, the issue of services has a cost,” Zúñiga explained in an interview with the EFE news agency on July 10.
Between inflation and migration
Inflation in Mexico rose 4.98% in June 2024, closing the first half of 2024 at its highest level of the year, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) reported on July 9.
Meanwhile, migration in Mexico increased by almost 650% year-on-year, reaching a record of almost 1.4 million between January and May 2024, according to data published in June by the National Migration Institute (INM). Of that total, 377,401 were Venezuelan citizens.
The situation has an impact on civil organizations in Tapachula, where they claim that they are caring for migrants despite the government’s omission, such as the Todo Por Ellos shelter, one of the largest on the border.
Lorenza Reyes, director of the shelter, said that 1,000 Mexican pesos (55.5 dollars) are spent daily on just one meal for the migrants.
This shelter lives off the help of good-hearted Mexican people, who come here and say, ‘Look, we brought this for the shelter.’ Here they even give them clothes and shoes. I have a friend who helps me with the rent for the shelter,” he said.
The activist confessed that the number of migrants there is now overwhelming for citizen groups on the southern border.
“There are too many people, sometimes it stresses me out, but God closes one door and opens another, faith is the last thing to be lost with all these people,” he added.
Migrants live on charity
Migrants who depend on charity live in the shelter, such as Venezuelan Andreina Santana, who fled her country due to discrimination from her family and gangs that threatened her for being a member of the LGTBIQ+ community.
“I suffered discrimination on the street, people point at me, they look at me as if I were doing something wrong,” she told EFE.
There is also Honduran Edwin, who reported that his daily expenses are transportation and the use of bathrooms because he gets food at a shelter.
“At least, (I spend) regarding 200 to 250 Mexican pesos (from 11.1 dollars to 13.88 dollars) on food, tickets. There are people who do not have access to a bathroom (…) there is a lot of inflation here. Thank God we have that support with the lady who gives us a hand and gives us food,” he described.
Situation of migrants in Mexico
On June 27, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said migrant arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border fell further to 3,479 on June 25, a 72% reduction compared to the 12,498 migrant apprehensions on December 18, the peak of last year.
Many of the migrants who arrive in the Aztec country have the objective of crossing the border into the United States; however, on this journey, several have died and others have been victims of kidnappings by criminal gangs that lead the areas.
On June 28, Mexican activists reported that at least 25 migrants drowned in rivers or in the desert in the last four weeks of that month.
Pastor Francisco González, director of the Vida shelter and the Somos Uno por Juárez Shelter Network, said that the deaths of all these people are a consequence of immigration restrictions, which involve increasingly strict surveillance by U.S. authorities.
In September 2023, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) declared the US-Mexico border “the most dangerous land migration route in the world,” with more than 686 migrants dead or missing in 2022.
In May, Chihuahua state police revealed that they had freed more than 1,700 foreigners kidnapped on the U.S.-Mexico border in the past three years.
According to reports from some of the victims, the criminals ask the migrants’ families for large sums of money to release them.
The civil association Alto al Secuestro reported 772 kidnappings of migrants in 2023, nearly a third of the total victims of this crime throughout the country. While in March 2024, a figure of 521 kidnapped foreigners was recorded.
With information from EFE
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2024-07-11 19:45:39
