About 300 migrants start walking north in southern Mexico, but goal is not US border
Tapachala, Mexico (AP) – Approximately 300 immigrants came out of this city of South Mexico on Wednesday, and the activist, who helped organize them, remained in custody on the allegations of human smuggling.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said this Luis García VillagránThe leader of a local non -governmental organization was arrested on Tuesday in Tapachula, “Not an activist.” “This is a crime,” he said.
Sheinbaum said on Wednesday that García Villagrán had a arrest warrant for years. It was not known why the open -proof and very public figure had not been arrested before.
The immigrant group, who left Tapachula, close to the Guatemala border, was small in the early hours on Wednesday. Migrant caravans in the past years. US President Donald Trump has had very few movements of immigrants since he took office in January, but the number of migrations was falling before that.
Wednesday, walking, their goals are not the United States, but to reach the center of Mexico, he said. They complained that they were waiting for months to legalize their situation or to take asylum.
In recent years, the Mexican government has worked in Southern Mexico to include immigrants away from the US. From time to time, this strategy inflated the number of immigrants in Tapachula until he started to walk in hundreds of protests. Chiapas is the poorest state in Mexico and immigrants complain that there are very few work or existing houses.
Johnny López from Ekvador expected a determination to apply for asylum, including a baby born in Tapachula, with his wife and three children, and finally waited for a rejected determination. Now they planned to go to Mexico City, where López hoped to find a job to support his family.
Immigrants were accompanied by immigrant agents, police, sailors and medical officials.
Heyman Vázquez, a Catholic priest, accompanied them. García described Villagran’s arrest as “unfair ..
Vázquez said that the Mexican government showed its concern about immigrant caravans and that it would be solved by facilitating the legalization of immigrants’ immigration status.
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