The Mexican government has established a militarized fence to prevent the passage of thousands of people who have arrived at its southern border. This is the first time an operation of this nature has been deployed, totally under the control of the military. The strategy has been called into question because Mexico is in fact becoming the migration wall that the United States has been waiting for for decades.
The Mexican government has established a militarized fence to prevent the passage of thousands of people who have arrived at its southern border. This is the first time an operation of this nature has been deployed, totally under the control of the Army. The strategy has been called into question as Mexico is effectively becoming the migration wall the U.S. has been waiting for for decades.
The search of vehicles, as is the case for most of those intending to leave the border region with Guatemala, is part of a large-scale operation by the federal government to try to prevent undocumented migrants from moving north.
Since January 2021, more than 13,000 elements of the army, navy, GN and INM have been permanently deployed, forming a militarized fence to virtually lock up thousands of new arrivals from Haiti, Central America, Africa and other regions.
The official fence is located on all roads and border crossing sites. And, at least for the authorities, it seems to be paying off. Several security rings have been established in these entities to control the migratory flow, acknowledges the Secretary of National Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval González.
Throughout 2021 and in the first months of this year, many tried to leave the southeast with caravans organized from Tapachula. Most of them, however, were dissolved by the National Guard and the INM.
From January 2021 to March of this year, the INM sent 93,055 migrants to Guatemala City by land, according to data from the Guatemalan Migration Institute (IGM). The migrants from different countries, including Haiti, were transported in 2,226 buses and delivered to customs offices in El Ceibo, Tecún Umán and El Carmen.
In addition, there were deportations by plane. IGM reports that during the same period, 8,692 people were sent to this country by air on flights chartered by the Mexican government.
For Haitian migrants, the last repatriation from Mexico to the Haitian capital was on October 6, 2021, however, several thousand Haitian migrants have been deported to Guatemala City by the National Institute of Migration.
Ducasse Mackendy