National guard held in limbo9/7/2023 ![]() ![]() I want to be something more and have a better life,” said Baptiste, 32. “I couldn’t make enough money to support my family or pay my tuition fees. ![]() Baptiste said he tried unsuccessfully to get a refund from the travel agent after the US banned Haitians, so decided to risk it. Photograph: Nina Lakhaniīut with inflation topping 13% in Chile, Baptiste bought a plane ticket to Mexico City on 2 January, with plans to travel overland to the US border. “There is no coherent policy, just containment,” said Paulino Martínez, a lawyer at the Mexico City shelter Cafemin.īaptiste spent five years in Santiago, Chile, working as an industrial machine operator while saving to study civil engineering. In Mexico, advocates accuse the government of once again pandering to US demands. ![]() It comes after a similar move against Venezuelans in October which resulted in thousands of people – including some who had already started the asylum process in the US – being dumped in cities across Mexico.įrom a US perspective, the policy has been a success leading to a significant drop in Venezuelans seeking asylum at the border. Expelling people at the border is going to continue.”ĭenying Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans their legal right to seek asylum in the US is the latest iteration of a pandemic-era crackdown, which began with the Trump administration using an obscure public health law, known as Title 42 to justify closing the border to mostly Central American and Mexican refugees and migrants. They work together to make life as confusing and difficult as possible for people who need help,” said July Rodríguez, a migrant advocate and founder of Apoyo a Migrantes Venezolanos (Support for Venezuelan Migrants). “Mexico does not have policies independent of the US. Meanwhile, his wife was among a group dropped off 200 miles further south in San Miguel de Allende, while others were taken down to Acapulco, one of the most dangerous cities in the country.Ī week later, González was among dozens of desperate people – including infants and children – from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador, Angola and Afghanistan camped outside the headquarters of Mexico’s refugee agency (Comar) in the country’s capital, unsure what to do or where to go. After spending a night in detention, they were bussed another 200 miles south-east to neighbouring Zacatecas state – and given a letter which said they had 20 days to leave Mexico. ![]() González was driven 500 miles south-west to the state of Durango with around 40 others. A couple of days later, the vast majority of the group – which included women and children – were taken back over the border to a Mexican immigration facility in Piedra Negras.Īlthough nobody explained what was going on, four days earlier the Biden administration had announced plans to expand a widely condemned Trump-era policy allowing border officials to summarily expel migrants and would-be asylum seekers from Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba.Īmerican authorities did not specify a start date for the latest crackdown, but over the next few days, the Cubans were split up and bussed hundreds of miles south to different cities across Mexico. ![]()
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