Seventeen people, including 13 police officers, were injured Sunday in clashes in Mexico City between security forces and a caravan of migrants, three days after a car crash killed 55 migrants in the south of the country.
Clashes erupted at the southern entrance to the Mexican capital, where illegal immigrants tried to protest by asking for legal documents.
According to the Mexican city authorities, "13 police officers were injured" and "four people needed medical attention."
The migrants, who had left the Mexican-Guatemalan border on October 23, wanted to go to the Church of Our Lady of Guadeloupe in the northern part of the Mexican capital for the annual pilgrimage in honor of the patron saint of Mexico. thousands of people for many days.
On Thursday, 55 migrants, mostly from Guatemala, were killed in a car crash in the state of Chiapas. They were hidden in the body of a truck, which overturned. They had paid traffickers to transport them to the United States.
The influx of immigrants to Mexico has broken all records this year, with more than 108.195 asylum applications filed between January and October, up from 41.000 in 2020. Most applications are from Haitians, followed by Hondurans and Cuba.
Even when they arrive at Mexico's border with the United States, the migrants are faced with austerity from the US authorities, who have begun sending asylum seekers back to Mexico under a program signed by the two countries.
Under this program, called "Quedate en Mexico" (Immigrate to Mexico), immigrants must wait in Mexico for a response to their US asylum application. The plan was implemented during the presidency of Donald Trump and was suspended by Joe Biden, but came back after a decision of the Supreme Court.
Source: RES-EAP