US plans to reinstate ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy next month

10/15/2021

Source: ABC News

The Biden administration said it plans to reinstate a Trump-era border policy next month to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court, complying with a judge’s order.

It hinges on approval of the Mexican government, which has raised concerns that U.S. officials are working to address, the Justice Department said in a court filing late Thursday. Mexico wants cases to generally conclude within six months and ensure that asylum-seekers have timely and accurate information about hearing dates and times and better access to legal counsel.

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3 nights in a migrant detention center—for the crime of not carrying passport

10/13/2021

Source: Mexico News Daily

I went to the south of Mexico to meet migrants and cover their struggles on their northward journeys, but I never envisioned I’d become one.

Traveling back from a town to Tapachula, Chiapas, on October 3, the minibus I was in was stopped by immigration officials at a checkpoint. I soon realized the highway was littered with such checkpoints, stationed with heavily armed soldiers.

An immigration official asked to see my passport. I didn’t have it, but offered a UK driving license. Insufficient.

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Middle-Class Migrants Fly to Mexico and Then Cross U.S. Border Illegally

10/13/2021

Source: The Wall Street Journal

More migrants illegally entering the U.S. to apply for asylum are members of South America’s middle class who fly to the border by plane, according to authorities and aid workers.

While the majority of people who come to the U.S. through Mexico are among the world’s poorest fleeing poverty and crime, such as the thousands of Haitians who recently formed a makeshift camp in Del Rio, Texas, the growth in middle-class migrants reflects continued hardship in nations such as Brazil and Venezuela from the Covid-19 pandemic and associated economic downturns, as well as political instability.

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Foreign tourists must show immigration document to buy a bus ticket

10/08/2021

Source: Mexico News Daily

A group of national bus companies now requires that foreign passengers wishing to buy bus tickets show immigration documents in accordance with a request from the National Immigration Institute (INM).

“Based on the request from various state, federal and [INM] authorities and in the face of the extraordinary situation of the flow of migrants currently crossing the country, we would like to inform you that this protocol will be implemented,” Autobuses de Oriente (ADO) wrote on Twitter.

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Canadian man’s story spotlights inhumane conditions for migrant detainees

10/01/2021

Source: Mexico News Daily

According to official statistics, some 147,000 people apprehended by Mexican immigration authorities were held in a detention center between January and August this year. Earlier this month, Herbenson Elma, 38, of Haiti and Canadian Daniel Maté, 46, joined this unenviable club.

Both were apprehended by authorities while traveling by bus through Mexico, but this is where most similarities in their stories end.

“We were in prison together,” said Elma, who, with other Haitian migrants, was released shortly after Maté.

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Mexico sends 70 Haitian migrants to Port-au-Prince by plane

10/01/2021

Source: Al Jazeera

Mexico has sent a group of 70 Haitian migrants, including 13 children, on a plane to Port-au-Prince, in what the government said was part of an “assisted voluntary return” to Haiti.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, Mexico’s interior and foreign ministries said the flight was conducted as part of an agreement between Mexican and Haitian authorities to manage an increase in the number of Haitian asylum seekers moving through Mexico towards the United States.

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‘We made it’: Haitians learn from experience to reach Mexico’s Tijuana

Source: Reuters

While thousands of Haitians were detained, deported or expelled from a camp on Mexico’s frontier with Texas last week, many others traveled west to the border city of Tijuana, hoping to avoid a crackdown aimed at stemming the rising tide of migrants.

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Migrants returned to Mexico describe horror of kidnappings, torture, rape

09/29/2021

Source: NBC News

After Gustavo and his family were sent back to Mexico after they crossed the U.S. border, his two sons said they were hungry. Gustavo, a Honduran man, sat them on the steps of the bridge and crossed the street to buy them something to eat. He remembers that a car approached him as he walked those steps. “They put me in the car. The children stayed there, waiting for me, but I didn’t come back.”

He had been kidnapped.

Days later, on the same bridge, Jorge Geovanni Díaz, also from Honduras, found himself holding hands with his son, who is 7, after the U.S. returned them to Mexico. Discouraged, he called their smuggler, or coyote. They were picked up in front of the international bridge and taken to a bodega, where almost 200 people were hoping to cross the river again. All of a sudden, armed men came in and violently took them all away. For this man and his child, 44 harsh days in captivity began.

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Mexico to resume voluntary flights for migrants who want to return to Haiti

09/27/2021

Source: Reuters

Mexico’s government said on Sunday that it will resume flights to Port-au-Prince starting next week for Haitian migrants who want to return home.

The flights from Tapachula in Chiapas and Villahermosa in Tabasco will be offered to “those who voluntarily wish to return to their country,” the Mexican government said in a statement.

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UN migration body asks Brazil to receive Haitians on US-Mexico border

09/24/2021

Source: Reuters

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has formally asked Brazil whether it would receive some Haitians camped along the U.S.-Mexico border hoping to enter the United States, according to two sources with knowledge of the request.

The petition from the IOM, a United Nations agency, comes as U.S. President Joe Biden faces mounting pressure to resolve yet another migration crisis. A massive flow of migrants has arrived at the U.S. southern border, sparking political headaches and logistical obstacles for the United States and Mexico.

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