Migrant caravan disbands after Mexico grants temporary visas

Mexico, June 12

A migrant caravan that began to pass through the Mexican state of Chiapas on June 6 with the aim of reaching the US, has disbanded after Mexican officials offered temporary visas. The caravan, the largest so far this year, left the city of Tapachula on the border with Guatemala with more than 10,000 Central American, Venezuelan and Caribbean migrants, many of whom had waited months to receive permission to enter Mexico legally so they could pass through the country to the northern border, reports Xinhua news agency.

The migrants, who wanted to travel to the US, had formed the caravan after being denied visas by the Mexican government.

Luis Garcia Villagran, an activist who accompanied the caravan, said that "9,700 legal resources were delivered so that undocumented immigrants could advance to the north of the country".

These resources include visas granted by Mexico's National Institute of Immigration for humanitarian reasons or those that allow visitors to reside in the country for 30-180 days.

The migrant caravan travelled about 107 km into Mexico in five days, during which it weakened in both size and momentum.

Since 2021, similar caravans marching north from Tapachula were disbanded by Mexican authorities.

Mexico deported more than 114,000 illegal immigrants in 2021, and detained 115,379 between January 1 and April 13 of this year alone, according to the Immigration Policy Unit of the Ministry of the Interior.

The number of migrants detained by the US on the border with Mexico between October 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021 was 1,734,686, a record high.

--IANS