Migrants on edge as Mexico ups enforcement

TAPACHULA, Mexico — Mexican security and immigration authorities have stepped up patrols, highway checkpoints and raids in southern Mexico since the United States started expelling Venezuelan migrants last month.

The Mexican government has not said whether its enforcement actions near its border with Guatemala are related to the U.S. policy change, which effectively shuts the door to Venezuelans trying to enter the U.S. through Mexico, but the efforts have put migrants in this southern city on edge.

Authorities have also been more active in breaking up small migrant caravans that try to advance north from Tapachula.

For months, the government seemed to encourage small groups of migrants to leave Tapachula, to relieve the building pressure and frustration there. It established an immigration center that issues temporary documents 180 miles to the northwest in San Pedro Tapanatepec.

But a small caravan that was scheduled to leave Monday had only 100 migrants. And authorities broke up two small caravans that had left the previous week after letting them walk for about 90 miles.

Orley Castillo of Honduras has been living in Tapachula’s central park for a week with his 15-yearold son. In that time, he has seen National Guard and immigration agents pursuing migrants, including on one occasion when he and his son were detained until showing papers proving they had applied for asylum.

“Two consecutive days the Guard and immigration have come to run off the people because a caravan was supposedly going to form,” he said sitting in the park Wednesday.

Still, many are finding a way to move north. Thousands of migrants await temporary documents at the immigration center housed in large tents in San Pedro Tapanatepec.