Once across, they walked quickly to their next hiding place, hoping that the immigration officials and National Guard wouldn’t come back. After passing through places like the Darién Gap - a harrowing stretch of jungle separating Colombia and Panama where many migrants lose their lives or loved ones - they knew that this bridge was just another obstacle on their journey. The migrants’ hands gripped the sides of the bridge as they carefully stepped from board to board, many wearing the flimsy sandals that had carried them across as many as nine countries. The National Guard soldier watched, his long gun hanging in front of him, as the immigration officials checked in the brush before deciding to leave with the three they already had in custody.Īfter a lookout on a motorcycle saw them leave, smugglers quickly began moving roughly 50 more Haitians across the bridge. They reached a rickety pedestrian bridge made of old wooden slats, some with enough room in between for a person to fall to the river more than 30 feet below. The officials returned to the trail, looking for signs of other migrants. “So much suffering,” a Haitian woman said in Spanish as officials walked her back to their van. The officials soon found and detained three Haitian migrants on a nearby path through the jungle. They barely escaped an approaching squad of Mexican immigration officials and National Guard. Suddenly the taxis took off, empty, back toward the highway to Tapachula. They had been commissioned by smugglers and were waiting to pick up migrants. On a recent October morning, 10 taxis clustered in a clearing down a dusty, country road in the jungle near the small town of Guadalupe Victoria between Ciudad Hidalgo and Tapachula. When the United States began expelling migrants of various nationalities to Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mexico copied the strategy, using ambiguous legal processes to send migrants from many countries across the border to small Guatemalan towns without the resources to help them.Īs at the U.S.-Mexico border, that fear of enforcement and its consequences also means migrants end up in increasingly dangerous situations to try to get through undetected. And for those who do get caught, they often end up detained in the largest immigration detention center in Mexico, which is so crowded that some are forced to sleep in the outdoor recreation area on mats. That fear has held tens of thousands captive in the nearby city of Tapachula, stalled by a dysfunctional asylum system that they believed was their only option to travel out of the region safely. Though Mexico doesn’t catch nearly everyone crossing its southern border, its enforcement raids and checkpoints and the consequences of them are enough to keep migrants fearful. While the migration agreements between the two countries are not clear, human rights observers see their effects in what they call the increased militarization of Mexico’s southern border - a phrase often used by human rights observers at the U.S.-Mexico border to describe the United States’ efforts to keep migrants out. Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program, said many advocates refer to these similarities as an exportation of U.S. At its southern border, Mexico has incorporated strategies used by its northern neighbor at the border they share, partly in response to pressure from the United States to keep migrants from reaching its soil. The immigration enforcement tactics used at the two borders are also similar. ports of entry even if they are vaccinated. Asylum-seekers are still not able to request protection at U.S.
The distinction in treatment between cross-border commerce and people trying to seek refuge is much like that of the San Diego-Tijuana border, which recently reopened to vaccinated tourists after being closed for much of the pandemic. “Who is not able to cross on those rafts openly? Migrants and people that are seeking protection. “This has been a crossroads for people for who knows how long, and there’s a lot of culture built up around that,” said Andrew Bahena, who monitors human rights conditions in the area for Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.
Small groups of officials from Instituto Nacional de Migración, or INM, and the Mexican National Guard approach those they believe are trying to migrate north and ask for travel documents. Amid all of this cross-border commerce, Mexican immigration officials look the other way - until asylum-seekers try to pass through.