Two different groups of migrants that made the long trip through Central America and Mexico to our Southern border are determined not to go home empty-handed. They are now demanding that they either be granted asylum or be paid the whopping sum of $50,000 each. And what product or service did they do to earn such an amount? The drama of the caravan certainly wasn’t that entertaining.
Approximately 700 have voluntarily returned to their country of origin, 300 have been deported, and 2,500 have applied for humanitarian visas in Mexico, according to Xochtil Castillo, a caravan member who met with Mexican officials Tuesday. The group of unaccounted migrants, about 3,500 are presumed to have either crossed illegally into the United States, moved to other Mexican border cities, or simply fallen through the cracks.
Mexico’s National Institution of Migration did not respond to a request to verify those numbers Tuesday.
The first group demanding action, numbering about 100, arrived at the U.S. Consulate at about 11 am Tuesday. The migrants said they were asking that the Trump Administration pay them $50,000 each or allow them into the U.S.
When asked how the group came up with the $50,000 figure, organizer Alfonso Guerrero Ulloa of Honduras, said they chose that number as a group.
“It may seem like a lot of money to you,” Ulloa said. “But it is a small sum compared to everything the United States has stolen from Honduras.”
The group’s letter criticized American intervention in Central America. They gave the U.S. Consulate 72 hours to respond. They said they had not decided what to do if their demands were not met.
“I don’t know, we will decide as a group,” Ulloa said.
The second letter, delivered around 1:20 p.m., came from a separate group of caravan members asking for the U.S. to speed up the asylum process. Specifically, the group asked U.S. immigration officials to admit up to 300 asylum seekers at the San Ysidro Port of Entry each day.
Currently, officials admit between 40 and 100 asylum seekers. The group of migrants say the slow pace violates American and international laws that call for an immediate process, and places vulnerable migrants at risk.
“In the meantime, families, women and children who have fled our countries continue to suffer and the civil society of Tijuana continue to be forces to confront this humanitarian crisis, a refugee crisis caused in great part by decades of U.S. intervention in Central America,” the letter states.
The second letter came from a group of about 50 migrants, including about 15 who participated in a hunger strike that also demanded a swifter U.S. asylum process. The non-profit Pueblo Sin Fronteras helped organize the delivery of the second letter.
Representatives from the second group met with Mexican immigration officials in Tijuana. The migrants asked Mexican officials to stop working with the municipal police in deporting caravan members.
Migrants thought the number of deportations and voluntary repatriations is a reflection of their precarious situation in Tijuana.
“A lot of people are leaving because there is no solution here,” said Douglas Matute, 38, of Tijuana. “We thought they would let us in. But Trump sent the military instead of social workers.”
Source: The San Diego Union Tribune
