TAPACHULA, Mexico -- The Mexican and Salvadoran presidents met in Mexico on Thursday to discuss a development plan that aims to slow a surge of mostly Central American migrants toward the U.S. border.
The meeting came amid tough U.S. pressure on President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to do more to curb migration through Mexican territory. His government has recently begun deploying some 6,000 National Guard agents to help control the influx.
But at least some migrants are skeptical.
Carlos Vindel is a 24-year-old driver from El Salvador who was waiting to request asylum in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula.
Vindel said it's "very good" to offer migrants jobs, "but if the violence doesn't end it won't work."
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele took office June 1 and shares Lopez Obrador's view that the key to avoiding more migration is creating opportunities in Central America. As in the neighboring countries of Guatemala and Honduras, thousands of Salvadorans have left the country in recent months to flee poverty and violence.
While the arrival of migrants to Mexico's southern border appears to have slowed somewhat in recent days with the anticipated arrival of National Guard forces, some continued to trickle in.
"The poverty is not going to change," said Marisol Martinez, who left El Salvador because her 13-year-old daughter was threatened and she feared a gang would soon come to recruit her 14-year-old son. They entered Mexico this week.
"I was scared," she said. "But thank God we made it."
But Mexico's ramped-up effort to curb the flow of Central American migrants to the United States so far hasn't eased the burden on the dozens of independent humanitarian shelters that are scattered along migration routes through the country. It may even have increased demand because many fear they could be detained if they leave the shelter.
Religious groups, mostly Catholic but including some Protestant denominations, have long operated shelters to aid migrants. Initially, they largely helped Mexicans making their way north, or those who had been deported and dumped across the border. But the flow of Mexicans north has abated, replaced by a new flood of Central Americans, Cubans, Haitians and even Africans trying to reach the U.S. or, in some cases, establish roots in Mexico itself.
Most of the migrants at Olga Sanchez's Good Shepherd near the Mexico-Guatemala shelter are seeking refugee status in Mexico and awaiting documentation that could eventually allow them to find work and settle in the country.
At Mexico's northern border with the U.S., shelters in places like Tijuana, Mexicali and Ciudad Juarez are overwhelmed both by migrants arriving from the south, as well as by thousands being returned by the U.S. government to await resolution of their asylum petitions in Mexican territory.
The pinch has been compounded by the austerity measures of Lopez Obrador, who has slashed support for non-governmental organizations in general, even if he said Wednesday that his government would support those running shelters.
On Tuesday, the state government of Tabasco, through which many migrants pass, announced that it was investigating shelters on suspicion of money laundering.
Meanwhile, migrants have been trying to make the best of the crowded conditions, appreciative of having a safe place to rest.
"It's better to be here than have them take you prisoner," said Hoda Teresa Gomez, who arrived from Honduras with her husband and three children two weeks ago.
The flow of migrants has slowed as soldiers, marinesand federal police work highway checkpoints that inspect the documents of those travelling in taxis and public transportation. They have also made a showing on the banks of the Suchiate River that divides the two countries.
But even if fewer are arriving there is little relief in sight for the saturated shelters because many of the migrants fear continuing their journey north with the increased immigration controls. On Tuesday, Sanchez's shelter had to turn away seven migrants from El Salvador because there was no space. They were sent to a hotel being rented by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for those seeking asylum in Mexico.
"Here everything is complicated, the bed, the baths, sometimes if kids get sick there's no medicine," said Eylin Martinez cradling her 11-month old son at Good Shepherd. The infant was naked because she had just bathed him in an attempt to lower his fever. "But we're OK."
The Rev. Cesar Augusto Canaveral, director of the Belen shelter in Tapachula, characterized the situation as a "humanitarian emergency."
Canaveral warns arriving migrants to not leave the shelter much, because they could be detained.
He worried that Mexico's militarizing of the southern border could lead to even more migration in the long run.
"I don't think the government can last at the border," he said. "As soon as the soldiers leave it will be worse because they [migrants] will come with more force."
A Section on 06/21/2019