No menu items!

COSTA RICA'S LEADING ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER

HomeLatin AmericaCentral AmericaMexico and Guatemala in joint effort to slow migrant caravans

Mexico and Guatemala in joint effort to slow migrant caravans

The governments of Mexico and Guatemala have launched a joint military-police operation along their common border aimed at blocking caravans of migrants hoping to reach the United States.

The Biden administration had sent envoys to the two countries last Monday to seek their help as it struggles to control a surge of migrants seeking to reach its southern border.

“The criminal networks of human traffickers have sold them (the migrants) the illusion that they can reach the border with the United States without risk,” said Francisco Garduno, head of Mexico’s National Migration Institute (NMI).

“That’s why we are reinforcing our presence” in southern Chiapas state “to prevent children and adolescents being used as ‘passports’ to reach the border,” he said.

Under Biden, the United States has not been deporting children or adolescents who arrive unaccompanied.

Garduno said round-the-clock surveillance operations will continue along Mexico’s entire southern border, as well as on highways and rail lines “to maintain a regular migratory flow, including sanitary precautions against Covid-19.”

He said some 3,000 undocumented migrants cross into Mexico daily, half of them via the southern states of Chiapas and Tabasco.

For his part, Guatemala’s deputy foreign minister Eduardo Hernandez said his government is trying to persuade the migrants’ home countries to discourage the caravans.

The “best thing for all concerned,” he said, is that the caravans never form in the first place.

Thousands of people — most of them from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua — have been surging northward in the hope, they say, of escaping the poverty and violence of their home countries.

In February alone, US border agents tallied some 100,000 undocumented migrants reaching the southern border, including some 9,500 unaccompanied minors, a 28 percent rise from January. The US government is bracing for a 20-year high in arrivals.

Trending Now

El Salvador Sees Big Gains from Bitcoin Price Surge

El Salvador has gained $443 million from the rise in Bitcoin's value, a cryptocurrency the country began acquiring nearly four years ago under the...

Dominical to Quepos: The Costa Rican Road That Took 30 Years to Finish

The original Pan-American Highway heading south from San José once took a dramatic and daunting route. It passed through the old capital of Cartago...

UN Experts Warn of Possible Nicaraguan Government Role in Exile’s Murder in Costa Rica

A team of UN human rights experts said Tuesday that involvement by the Nicaraguan government in the killing of retired major Roberto Samcam cannot...

Panama Union Leader Saúl Méndez Goes into Exile in Bolivia

The leader of Panama’s main union, Saúl Méndez, accused of fraud and money laundering, left for exile in Bolivia this Saturday. He had taken...

Exiled NGO Slams Bukele’s Rule as Repeat of Authoritarian Past

Salvadorans deserve “something better” than living between “gangs or dictatorship,” said Noah Bullock, director of the influential NGO Cristosal, in an interview. On Thursday,...

Salvadoran Lawyers Fight for Rights of Trump-Deported Migrants in Secretive Prison

A small group of overstretched and outmatched lawyers is fighting for the rights of men deported by the Trump administration and held in a...
spot_img
Costa Rica Coffee Maker Chorreador
Costa Rica Coffee Maker Chorreador
Costa Rica Travel Insurance
Costa Rica Rocking Chait
Costa Rica Travel

Latest News from Costa Rica