Venezuelan migrants stranded on Mexico’s southern border following U.S. President Donald Trump’s restrictions protested to demand humanitarian flights to return them to their country.
The South Americans demonstrated outside the Siglo 21 station of the National Institute of Migration (INM), where protesters like Wilmarí Villa asked Mexican and Venezuelan authorities for help returning home, having been seeking support for nearly three months.
“I was left without resources, unable to continue moving forward at least as far as Mexico City, but they also won’t let us board (the planes to return),” she told EFE from the protest in Tapachula, the largest city on the country’s southern border.
A group of Venezuelan women and senior citizens displayed signs with slogans such as “Help, Tapachula planes!”, “We want to return to our country, President (Nicolás) Maduro. We are 2,000 migrants in Tapachula, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, and Mexico City,” and “Urgent humanitarian flights!”
Mexico received 24,413 deportees from the United States in the first eight weeks of Trump’s new presidency, including 4,567 foreigners, according to the latest report from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has promised help to process their legal status or return to their country.
But this group of Venezuelans stated that there are 2,000 people from that country waiting for a return flight, like Greta Guevara, who said that returning to her country on her own costs around $1,000, and, furthermore, many people do not have passports.
Venezuelan Norberto Rincón asked Sheinbaum and Maduro for help because, he said, most migrants lack the financial resources and documents to return.
“We had to stay here, but now the situation is complicated. There are women, children, and single people who came to pursue the American dream and didn’t achieve it. Every time we meet here, they tell us there’s another way to return to the country,” he said.
Migrants have expressed their dismay at Trump’s policies, such as mass deportations, the “closure” of the border with thousands of military personnel deployed, and the elimination of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP One) application that allowed asylum seekers to apply for asylum in the United States from southern Mexico.
Venezuelans in particular, who make up nearly a quarter of irregular migrants in Mexico, lament Trump’s end to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and CBP One.
Source: lopezdoriga
