Migrants transit Mexico in massive numbers – with more coming from points south
US Customs and Border Protection registers sharp increase in August encounters after lull following the lifting of Title 42
An estimated 2,200 migrants forded the Rio Grande into Eagle Pass, Texas, shortly after midnight on Monday, marking one of the largest mass crossings on record.
Similar scenes continued throughout the week. Migrants arriving in Piedras Negras, on the Mexican side of the border, “head straight for the river,” Dominican Brother Obed Cuellar, director of the diocesan migrant shelter, told this newsletter.
Journalists covering the border put the number of migrants arriving along the U.S. southwestern border at more than 10,000 a day, numbers not seen since the end of Title 42 in May. The Border Patrol Union said via X, formerly Twitter, that more than 100,000 people irregularly entering the country had been released over the first 20 days of September. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released August statistics on encounters at the southwestern border in a Friday night new dump, showing a sharp surge after a lull earlier in the late spring and early summer.
All signs point to even larger numbers arriving from points south.
A Fox News video of migrants stealing rides atop northbound freight trains went viral recently, though such scenes have played out for decades south of the border. Similar scenes of Good Samaritans pitching food to migrants passing through north-central Zacatecas state also captured attention – though, again, such scenes have occurred in Veracruz state for more than 25 years as a group of campesina women known as Las Patronas have captured national and international attention for feeding migrants riding the rails.
But the numbers became so crushing that railway operator Ferromex announced a suspension of service on its lines through the manufacturing hubs of Guanajuato – with an estimated 2,000 people waiting for trains – and Aguascalientes toward Ciudad Juárez (opposite El Paso, Texas.) It also suspended trains running from Monterrey toward Piedras Negras. Ferromex reported at least six migrants suffering severe injuries riding “La Bestia,” as northbound trains are known for the way it maims the migrants falling under its steel wheels.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly called AMLO, predictably turned the Ferromex statement into a question of conspiracy, reflecting his ongoing disputes with the railway’s owner Germán Larrea, Mexico’s second-richest man. (Recall AMLO’s sudden expropriation of Larrea’s assets in May to complete a rail corridor across the Isthmus of Tenhuantepec and the president’s meddling in the sale of Citi’s Mexican banking assets, which were reportedly to be bought by Larrea until the expropriation occurred. AMLO also reportedly has had frictions with Larrea over the latter’s construction work on the Mayan Train project.) The president quipped last week:
“What matters to us aren’t the trains. We care about migrants. Now the owners of the trains, in an unusual way, put out a press release saying they’re going to stop the trains. That’s all fine and migrants must be protected, but it really caught my attention was this release of Mr. Larrea’s statement.”
Steady flow of migrants arriving from points south
Governments to the south of Mexico, meanwhile, also report record flows of people moving northward through Central America and into Mexico. It’s a trend which has been highlighted repeatedly in this newsletter and reflects changing dynamics as many of the more than seven million migrants having fled Venezuela over the past decade decamp countries in South America – where they’ve lived for years now – and head north.
The Biden administration recently announced Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans who arrived in the United States prior to July 31. The status allows them to work legally. But the announcement isn’t without controversy. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Until now, top officials with the White House and Department of Homeland Security had refused to consider that option, arguing behind closed doors that such a move would ultimately serve as a draw for even more migrants to head for the U.S. border, according to people familiar with their conversations.
The announcement followed Mexican foreign minister Alicia Bárcena revealing plans over the summer for the opening of an “International Migrant Attention Center” in the city of Tapachula near Mexico’s border with Tapachula. She said on a trip to Washington that the United States and Mexico wanted to resolve the issue of “people that got stuck in Mexico after the end of Title 42.”
Migrants from other authoritarian regimes such as Cuba and Nicaragua are decamping in large numbers, too, while migrants from other continents join in the journey through Central America and Mexico.
In Piedras Negras, Brother Cuellar offered a simple explanation for why so many migrants are crossing into the United States rather than waiting in Mexico and trying to snag an appointment via an application known as CBP One for entering at a port of entry:
“I would imagine they know that everyone is being allowed to pass through and enter the United States.”
Some will be sent back to Mexico, he said, and even sent to southern states such as Tabasco or Chiapas with documents giving them 20 days to leave the country. “In these 20 days, many of them will head back to the border,” he said.
Record numbers registered
U.S. and Mexican official are registering large surges in migrant detentions. The U.S. Border Patrol recorded more than 177,000 arrests in August, according to unofficial figures obtained by The Washington Post – roughly a 30% increase from the 132,652 migrants detained in July.
The sharp increase in arrests followed a jump from nearly 100,000 detentions in June – the month following the end of Title 42, the pandemic-era health provision that allowed for the immediate expulsion of migrants to Mexico. CPB has released official figures showing 181,059 encounters between ports of entry in August. Total encounters in August totalled 232,972.
Mexico, meanwhile, stopped 72,223 migrants in July, smashing its previous all-time high. The county’s refugee assistance agency, COMAR, is also on pace to register record asylum claims in 2023. (More below on COMAR).
Record crossings through the Darién Gap
Panama recently announced increased deportations and tighter requirements for short-term visits after recording 350,000 people attempting to cross the Darién Gap so far in 2023. Those figures surpassed the 250,000 people transiting the thick jungle on the border with Colombia in 2022.
That flow is not expected to diminish much, despite Panama’s plans. A source working with migrants in Panama says the plans will target migrants already in the country. The source explained:
“The government officially recognizes 450,000 people living irregularly in Panama so for a country of (roughly 4.5 million people), that’s 10% (of the population). … We calculate there are more people, that there are at least 600,000 to 700,000 people, which would be 15% of the population.”
The source described a situation in which migrants from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are joining the flow of Venezuelans entering the Darién Gap, which has no roads and separates Colombia and Panama. The source explained:
“They’re all moving because many have managed to enter (Panama). It’s also true that there’s a mafia that manages these flows (on the Colombian side) and has established a presence on social networks, creating an image that (migrants) are going to be able to pass through, that they are going to be taken through the jungle.”
Colombia also seems unwilling to slow the flow of migrants. The New York Times reported:
“Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, acknowledged in an interview that the national government had little control over the region, but added that it was not his goal to stop migration through the Darién anyway – despite the agreement his government signed with the United States.
“After all, he argued, the roots of this migration were ‘the product of poorly taken measures against Latin American peoples,’ particularly by the United States, pointing to Washington’s sanctions against Venezuela.
“He said he had no intention of sending ‘horses and whips’ to the border to solve a problem that wasn’t of his country’s making.”
Nicaragua: a new jumping-off point for migrants
Nicaraguans, who used to migrate en masse to neighboring Costa Rica, have headed north in recent years as the country turns especially repressive and totalitarian (with an especially pointed persecution of the Catholic Church.) The country has turned into a jumping-off point for migrants from other countries, especially Cubans and Venezuelans, who can arrive without visas.
U.S. border officials have seen a massive spike in migrants from the African nation of Mauritania. Most of the Mauritanians arrived on flights to Nicaragua, which scrapped entry visa requirements and doesn’t require proof of onward travel, according to the Associated Press. The AP reported:
As word of the entry point spreads, travel agencies and paid influencers have taken to TikTok to promote the trip, selling packages of flights that leave from Mauritania, then connect through Turkey, Colombia and El Salvador, and wind up in Managua, Nicaragua. From there, the migrants, along with asylum seekers from other nations, are whisked north by bus with the help of smugglers.
Honduras registers record transmigration
Honduras, which neighbors Nicaragua, tracks transmigration through the country – with migrants registering for documents allowing them free transit. The country recorded an average of 23,660 migrants transiting its territory monthly between August 2022 and June 2023, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights think tank. That figure more than doubled to 48,971 people in July and topped 63,000 people in August.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders reported a record 18,380 irregular migrant crossings from Nicaragua into Honduras at the city of Danlí in just one week, according to a Sept. 8 statement.
City near Mexico’s southern border struggling with migrant arrivals
Migrants have been pouring into the city of Tapachula near the Mexican border with Guatemala, hoping to receive a travel document for transiting the country. A source in Tapachula with an international humanitarian relief organization told this newsletter that colleagues counted 5,000 people waiting to be processed outside the offices of The Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance.
The commission reports nearly 100,000 asylum requests so far in 2023, a 30% increase over the same period of 2022. Videos on social media showed a melee outside the COMAR offices Sept. 18 as migrants tired of waiting under trying conditions.
“There are no alternative means of immigration regularization, so people are basically forced to either request asylum in Mexico or travel by whatever means they have, and the means they have are very limited,” the source said.
The source explained that migrants often apply for asylum in Tapachula, but abandon the process due to the difficulties of remaining in southern Mexico. Others never had any intention of remaining in Mexico. The source said:
“They’re leaning on the experiences of other people (already in the United States.) Perhaps a person told them, ‘Look, go to COMAR, get the process started and later leave Tapachula.’”
Is the CBP One mobile application the ticket out of Tapachula?
The source says some people in southern Mexico are obtaining appointments for entering the United States through the CBP One mobile application, even though its use is restricted by geolocation technology to people in or north of Mexico City. But criminal groups (coyotes) are getting people appointments in places such as Tapachula for a price. The source said:
“CBP One completely changes the dynamics and there are people leaving Tapachula with appointments. .. They’re allowing flights from Tapachula to the northern border.”
Mexican immigration (INM) is accepting proof of appointments made through the CBP One application for transiting Mexico, though the source says the INM “resolves everything discretionally.”
What is the INM doing?
The role of Mexican immigration officials in slowing the flow of migrants through Mexico remains uncertain, according to sources and press reports. The INM largely backed off on enforcement efforts after a fire tore through its detention centre in Ciudad Juárez, killing 40 migrants, sources told this newsletter at the time. Sources say enforcement has increased more recently, though stories of migrants paying bribes to transit the country (and being forced to pay smugglers in cahoots with drug cartels) are rife.
The Mexican Supreme Court in March declared it unconstitutional to hold migrants for more than 36 hours, determining that being undocumented is an administration infraction, not a criminal one. The New York Times also reported:
Using a combination of immigration agents and tens of thousands of National Guard troops, Mexico continues to stop large numbers of people across the country from going north — 317,334 in the first seven months of the year. But most are released in Mexico: Deportations have dropped 55 percent to 34,557 in the first seven months of 2023 compared to the same period last year, according to government data.
For his part, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) continued his discourse of Mexico protecting migrants – while doing (quiet) deals with the United States on enforcement. He told the country Thursday:
“We are working together (with the United States) and taking care of the migrants, accompanying them so that there are no violations of their human rights, that they are not kidnapped and seeking information mechanisms so that they can legally have access to the United States, that is what we are doing.”
Is Mexico unfriendly for migrants?
While AMLO speaks of Mexico “protecting” migrants, the country has more than 34,000 National Guard members dedicated to patrolling the northern and southern borders. Mexican attitudes toward migrants also haven’t been the best, according to surveys.
A report from Oxfam Mexico shows Mexicans harbouring unfriendly attitudes towards migrants transiting the country. The report said:
“More than half (55%) of the people polled believe laws in the country are too permissive. They affirm, at the same time, that the government should limit itself only to regulating the matter. Some 56% consider that it should not provide assistance nor humanitarian aid to migrants.”
The report continued:
“Mexican society associates migrants with people who come from the south (from Mexico and other countries), who do not produce or contribute to society, highlighting factors such as their economic situation and physical aspects such as their skin colour. This is reflected in racist, classist and aporophobic perceptions.”