TUXTLA GUTIRREZ (Mexico), Nov 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Mexican immigration authorities said that they had offered temporary residency permits on humanitarian grounds to 2,500 US-bound migrants who set off in a caravan last week.
The migrants will be transferred to 10 different states around the country, National Institute of Migration official Hector Martinez Castuera said after talks with representatives of the caravan in the southern state of Chiapas.
“We have offered them, in addition to the card… accommodation in shelters and employment options,” he told reporters, adding that the permit was for one year and could be renewed.
Authorities began to transfer the foreigners in a dozen buses to locations in central, southern and western Mexico.
Officials said last week that around 1,500 people in another caravan that left the southern city of Tapachula on foot on Oct 23 had also accepted the temporary residency offer.
But hundreds more decided to keep going, voicing concerns that the offer was a ploy to detain and deport them.
Thousands of migrants stranded in Tapachula blocked a highway on Tuesday, protesting that the immigration authorities had not also provided them with permits.
US President Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House with a promise of a more humane approach towards migrants led to an increase in flows of undocumented foreigners fleeing poverty and violence.
The United States has recorded 1.7 million people entering illegally from Mexico between October 2020 and September 2021, an all-time high for the period.
In Mexico, more than 190,000 irregular migrants were detected by authorities between January and September this year, three times more than in 2020.
Some 74,300 have been deported. — NNN-AGENCIES
