Mexico issues transit visas to surge of African migrants
MEXICO CITY (AP)— Mexican immigration authorities say 424 migrants from African countries arrived at the southern state of Chiapas over two days last week.
The National Immigration Institute said Tuesday that it has issued them 20-day transit visas that will allow the migrants to reach the U.S.-Mexico border, where they plan to request asylum.
Officials call it an unusual surge and say most of the migrants first went to Brazil or Ecuador to start their journey through Latin America.
Most of the Africans presented themselves voluntarily to immigration officials in the Chiapas town of Tapachula. They did not specify their nationalities. Immigration support staff in Tijuana has been aiding migrants from the Congo, Somalia and Ghana to arrive at the U.S. port of entry at San Isidro.
DailyCaller has more:
Guatemala is facing an influx of African immigrants on their way to the United States, having caught 56 times more so far in 2016 than they did in all of 2015.
Only 13 African immigrants were caught in Africa in all of 2015, and by September 2, 2016 729 Africans had been caught by Guatemalan authorities, La Prensa reports. The majority of the African immigrants are from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Senegal, and Somalia.
The country is facing an increase of immigrants in general. In 2015, the national police reported 1,131 immigrants caught from various countries. By August 29, 2016, they had intercepted 2,514 immigrants, an increase of 122.2 percent.
Jorge Pereza Breedy, head of the International Organization for Migration in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Hondoras, said that changes in the situation in Europe has led these immigrants to come to Central America. “The saturation of the transit route in Europe and the increase in border security is one of the principal factors in the increase of Asian and African emigrants in Central America,” Breedy told La Prensa.
The African immigrants aren’t in Guatemala to stay there and instead are making there way northward towards Mexico and the United States. “It’s not that they want to come to this country to stay, they want to get to the United States,” Danilo Rivera of the Central American Institute for Social and Development Studies said to La Prensa. (RELATED: Mexico Shipping Hundreds Of Illegal Africans To US Border)
Recently, El Salvadoran authorities busted a human smuggling ring which generated $150,000 a year bringing immigrants illegally to the United States from Brazil.
**** But there is still more:
The New Face of American Immigration
This year candidates have focused on migrants from Mexico, but nationally and in most states, India and China have become the top sources for new arrivals.
Mexico: 37,290
India: 13,662
El Salvador: 8,709
Honduras: 7,925
China: 6,249
Going back to 2010, the matter of Africans fleeing to Latin America and then to the United States began for several reasons.
YaleGlobal: Latin America is becoming an increasingly common destination for African immigrants as Europe tightens its immigration controls and suffers from xenophobia and migration-related violence. Brazil, for example, which has the largest black population outside Africa, offers a more culturally receptive society. Though most of the population is white, Argentina receives a fair share of African migrants too. That country is attractive because immigrants can legalize their status and receive temporary work permits, even with the high level of unemployment, and have access to free healthcare and Spanish classes taught by Catholic church charities. While Europe shutters its borders, and the US tightens immigration, other countries that have historically grown through immigration are picking up the slack. – YaleGlobal
More African Immigrants Finding a Home in Latin America
As European countries tighten up border controls, a rising number of Africans fleeing trouble in their homelands are arriving at ports in Latin America
