In the first Mexican shelter reached by migrants after a trek through the Guatemalan jungle, about 150 migrants are sleeping in their dormitories and another 150 are on thin mattresses spread on the floor of their chapel.
Just six weeks into the year, the shelter known as “The 72” has already welcomed around 1,500 migrants, compared with 3,000 last year. He halved his sleeping space due to the pandemic. This was not a problem last year because few migrants arrived, but this year it was overwhelmed.
“We have a huge flow and no capacity,” said Gabriel Romero, the priest who runs the shelter in Tenosique, a city in the southern state of Tabasco. “The situation can get out of hand.”
Migrants from Latin America – from the Caribbean, South America and Central America and beyond – are moving again. After a year of pandemic-induced paralysis, those in daily contact with migrants believe that the flow to the north may return to the high levels seen in late 2018 and early 2019. The difference is that this would happen during a pandemic.
Health protection measures imposed to slow the spread of Covid-19, including drastically reducing the space for beds in shelters along the route, mean less safe spaces for migrants in transit.
“The flow is increasing and the problem is that there is less capacity than before to meet your needs,” said Sergio Martin, head of Doctors Without Borders in Mexico.
Some shelters remain closed by local health authorities and almost all have had to reduce the number of migrants who can help. Visa applications, asylum or any other official paperwork are delayed due to the government’s reduced capacity due to the pandemic.
“This is not a post-Covid migration; it is a migration in the midst of the pandemic, which makes it even more vulnerable, ”said Ruben Figueroa, an activist in the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement.
Some migrants expressed hope for a more friendly welcome from the new United States administration or began to move when some borders were reopened. Others are being driven by two major hurricanes that devastated Central America in November and despair has been aggravated by the economic impact of the pandemic.
Olga Rodríguez, 27, has been walking for a month since leaving Honduras with her husband and four children, aged three to eight, after Hurricane Eta flooded her home. They arrived in Mexico and applied for asylum, but were told it would take six months. Forced to sleep on the street, they changed plans.
“The children got cold, we got wet and I told my husband that if we are going to be cold and rain, we better go on foot,” she said of Coatzacoalcos. Now, your goal is the United States.
Joe Biden’s administration has taken steps to reverse some of Donald Trump’s tougher policies, but one policy continues to allow U.S. border officials to immediately send back almost anyone due to the pandemic. The United States government is concerned that the most hopeful message could trigger a rush to the border and says it will take time to implement new policies.
The number of people apprehended on the U.S. border with Mexico in January was more than double the same month last year and 20,000 above January 2019.
Last week, the Biden administration announced that it would slowly begin prosecuting the nearly 25,000 asylum seekers who were forced to await their process in Mexico under Trump.
Further south, Panama reopened its border in late January, and since then, groups have left the dense jungle of Darién that divides Panama from Colombia.
In January, Guatemalan authorities blocked the first caravan of the year, sending some 5,000 Hondurans back to their country within 10 days.
But while Guatemala was concentrated on the caravan, other migrants were moving north, as always, in small, discreet groups. It was during the caravan last month that shelters in southern Mexico began to see their numbers increase, with most Honduran migrants.
Small groups of migrants are more vulnerable to criminals who kidnap and extort them.
In late January, 19 bodies, shot and burned, were found near Mexico’s border with Texas. Most were considered Guatemalan migrants. A dozen state police officers were arrested in connection with the case.
Sergio Martin, of the organization Médecins Sans Frontières, said that despite the pandemic, migrants continue to be forced to move clandestinely. “We anticipate an increase in violence,” he said.