AZMEX I3-2 29 JAN 2019
Note: computer translation .
Thx
The stigma of the Central American migrant
Monday January 28, 2019,
Written by Ángeles Mariscal
http://www.eldiariodesonora.com.mx/notas.php?nota=124152
CIUDAD HIDALGO, CHIAPAS.-
Within a week of the Mexican border opening, thousands of people have entered
The Mexican border was opened to Central American migration a week ago, but what keeps arresting the thousands of people who are now entering Mexico is the stigma of the "gang" or "marero" migrant.
The scenarios contrast in the border area surrounding the Suchiate, a river that for decades migrants (mostly from Central America) have had to cross surreptitiously, skirting roads, dodging authorities, traffickers of people, and sometimes even the villagers, because they all see migration as a lucrative business.
The stories of extortions, abuses, rapes, assaults, kidnappings and exploitation are still to be broken.
I take a public transport that takes me from Ciudad Hidalgo -the city that borders the Suchiate River- to Tapachula. I sit forward, next to the driver. The conversation is emerging. On the road of the Pan-American Highway, a family of Honduran migrants stops. "How much does Tapachula charge us?" They ask the driver, and he automatically answers "30 quetzales per person," which would be the equivalent of just over 70 Mexican pesos.
Central American migrants register their entry into Mexican territory before authorities of the National Institute of Migration.
I look at it with amazement, the average price for the trip is 30 pesos. The driver tries to justify himself with me, as he whispers to me: "it's that they can be gangsters, you know; they can put me in trouble, you see that later in their mochilitas they bring the drugs, the weapons. " Perhaps, when feeling his own argument unjustified, he corrects them and says: "Well come on, I charge you 15 quetzales per person".
At another time of the day I travel the same route, on board a private car. We have hardly traveled a few kilometers when we see a stopped vehicle and, on the road, people who carry weapons and wear on their shirts the legend "Immigrant Assistance Office".
They are questioning two people who appear to be Garifuna (an ethnic group of African descent from Honduras). We stop and take some pictures. An agent approaches, I suppose it is from the Prosecutor's Office, and he tells me that I can not take pictures. I answer that we are on a public road and that if he is not committing a crime, I find no reason for his annoyance.
"I'm checking your data, I'm doing my job," he says. Then he gives me a hard look and decides to walk away. After a while he lets the two migrants go so they can continue on their way.
Several recommendations the National Human Rights Commission collect testimonies of migrants who accuse authorities of the three levels of government of carrying out extortion practices to let them pass. The recommendations have met with resistance from the authorities to comply with them, says the Commission's special report.
The eve of a week of the start of the "emergent program of humanitarian attention", the Secretariat of the Interior, Olga Sánchez Cordero, crossed the border bridge welcoming the thousands who stand in line to process and receive the visitor's card for humanitarian reasons ; At the same time, in the city of Tapachula, businessmen grouped in the Employers' Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex) rejected the massive entry of migrants.
In a letter addressed to the three levels of government, the businessmen argued that before employing migrants, the government must resolve the employment and development problems of the inhabitants of Mexico.
His argument: "receiving such an innumerable number of migrants can trigger the increase in insecurity, violence, illegality, even diseases (...) The southern border will continue to be the destination of illegal arrivals, and with them a marked break in our economy due to fear or violence that puts the integrity of our family at risk. "
The emergent program of humanitarian assistance grants migrants a visitor's card for humanitarian reasons that allows them to remain in Mexican territory for 6 months to a year.
But the fear of insecurity is not the background of animosity towards migrants.
"What bothers, first of the immigrants, and then of the refugees, is not that they are foreigners, but that they are poor," says the Spanish philosopher Adela Cortina in the book Aporofobia, the rejection of the poor.
The positioning of the Coparmex contrasts with the one that hours later the Secretary of the Interior gave. Amid migrants shouting "Thanks Mexico!", Sánchez Cordero said that the delivery of cards to migrants is part of "an ambitious development plan for the cities of the southern border."
In fact, the border worker's permit is being extended, which was only contemplated for the inhabitants of Guatemala. Sánchez Cordero explained that the border worker program was extended to the countries of the northern triangle of Central America, and the possibility of work will be for them to integrate into seven states of south-southeast Mexico.
What has been offered so far to migrants who are already on the border, is to participate in cleaning and repairing public spaces in the municipality of Suchiate and Tapachula, in exchange for an "economic support" of 84 pesos per 6 hours of work.
The stigma and the incipient labor offers, however, do not discourage those who line the border bridge.
"We tell the Mexican government, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, that we are going to do everything possible, that we are going to behave well so that they give us that visa to enter. We promise that what we come here are hard-working people, honest people, with a desire to work, "says one of the Central Americans, showing their hands and their identification, trying to be part of those thousands of migrants who are already in the country.
In just 7 days, 12,300 migrants entered the country. They are those who arrived in caravan, and those who arrive individually.
They are mostly from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, but people from Angola, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, and Haiti have also arrived.
Many more are on the way.
END
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