TAPACHULA – Tom's Blog

Hundreds of African migrants are finding themselves trapped in Mexico’s southern border region after new immigration rules no longer allow them safe passage to the U.S. The rule changes now say they must naturalize in Mexico or exit through its southern border.

A Cameroonian migrant, Esteban Azu, 37, said he paid human smugglers $8,000 to get him into the U.S. He said his journey took him from his home country to Turkey, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and finally to Mexico, Animal Politico reported.

“I arrived in Tapachula a month ago. I left Cameroon and went directly to Ecuador. From there to Colombia. I climbed mountains, walked through the jungle, to find this shit,” Azu expressed. “This shit! They don’t feed me. They don’t give me anything. I am very angry with the government of Mexico. This is not normal. This is bullshit. We need a solution. We just want to get out of here.”

The man who claims to be a plumber by trade, now finds himself trapped in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

A June 7 rule change that stems from an agreement between the U.S. and Mexico no longer allows safe passage to the United States. Mexico deployed thousands of its newly formed National Guard to enforce the new laws and deter migration through the country, Breitbart Texas reported. Since that time, migration through Mexico has dropped by about 40 percent.

Prior to the rule change, more than 1,100 African migrants arrived in a single Texas Border Patrol sector in a five-week period, Breitbart Texas reported in July.

In a press call in June, Brian Hastings, U.S. Border Patrol Chief of Law Enforcement Operations, told reporters this was the first large group “ever recorded in Border Patrol history solely from Central and South Africa. We’ve never seen that demographic in a large group of that size before.”

Prior to the rule change, migrants — African or others — received a 20-day passage through the country and were required to leave via any border. Obviously, the goal was the northern border of Mexico.

The new document being provided to migrants in southern Mexico states that the migrant may not “travel freely.” The document says they now must leave the country in 20 days “through a place destined for the international transit of people on the southern border closest to the place where said document was issued.”

Animal Politico interviews dozens of migrants — mostly Africans — who told the same story. They stated they were ordered to go to the regularization office or they may apply for asylum in Mexico. Neither option is said to be acceptable as their stated goal is entry into the United States.

“They do not want to request refuge in Chiapas because they want to do so in the United States,” Animal Politico stated.

Mexican immigration authorities reported that 3,712 people from Africa appeared between January and June 2019. The majority of those came from Cameroon. Most of the balance came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Similar demographics were reported by Del Rio Sector Border Patrol officials in June when more than 500 African migrants appeared along the U.S. side of Mexico’s northern border in a one-week period, Breitbart Texas reported.

Two weeks before the illegal crossings began in the Del Rio Sector, hundreds of African migrants gathered near an international bridge in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, to protest not being allowed entry into the U.S. through a legal port of entry, Breitbart News reported. The group complained that Cuban migrants were given preferential treatment.

Since that time, multiple groups of African migrants, mostly family units, crossed in the same area in large numbers. On June 5, agents apprehended another group of 34, bringing the total to more than 500 in less than a week.

In June and July, U.S. officials reported sharp decreases in the number of migrants being apprehended after crossing the border illegally.

“We just have to be patient, because there is nothing we can do.”

American Mirror – JUNE 20, 2019

New video from Mexico’s border with Guatemala shows a chaotic scene as scores of officers with the Federal Police and National Guard detain dozens of African men in Tapachula.

Ruptly, an “international video news agency,” posted the video early Wednesday.

Guards deployed at southern border after #Trump migrant deal#Mexico pic.twitter.com/KGaCiGpXEs

— Ruptly (@Ruptly) June 19, 2019

“Guards deployed at southern border after #Trump migrant deal,” the message read.

The footage shows several dozen African men, many of them shirtless, as they shouted, snapped their fingers, and waived at the camera as they sat and mulled about near a border gate, as about the same number of National Guard and Federal Police stood decked out in riot gear, including helmets and bullet-proof vests.

At least one man in the video appears to be a translator, working to relay messages from the shouting mob.

The video seemingly confirms a deal with Mexico negotiated by President Trump is working to halt the flood of illegal immigrants through Mexico into the United States, a crisis that escalated over the last year, initially with migrants from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

More recently, a wave of thousands of African migrants have traveled to Central America to exploit the situation and America’s asylum laws.

President Trump threatened to impose a 5 percent tariff on all goods imported by Mexico if the country’s leaders didn’t do more to help curb the flow of illegal immigrants heading north, which prompted Mexican officials to send thousands of National Guard members to the country’s southern border, crack down on financial networks supporting the migrant caravans, and agree to allow migrants to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S.

“Sad when you think about it, but Mexico right now is doing more for the United States at the Border than the Democrats in Congress!” Trump tweeted last week.

The Associated Press reported on the drastic increase in illegal immigrants crossing the U.S. border from the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Sudan, and other African countries in recent weeks.

“Officials in Texas and even Maine are scrambling to absorb the sharp increase in African migrants. They are coming to America after flying across the Atlantic Ocean to South America and then embarking on an often harrowing overland journey,” according to the news service.

“In one week, agents at the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector stopped more than 500 African migrants found walking in separate groups along the arid land after splashing across the Rio Grande, children in tow.

“That’s more than double the total of 211 African migrants who were detained by the Border Patrol along the entire 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border in the 2018 fiscal year.”

Thousands of African migrants are already in the U.S. and many are on their way to Portland, Maine, where the city offers financial assistance and other support catered to Africans. Many are first bused to San Antonio, Texas, where a Swiss reporter recently confronted several to learn more about their journey. But the migrants didn’t want to discuss how they arrived at the U.S. border or who funded their trip, though the Swiss reporters said several were witnessed by aid workers counting rolls of $100 bills, The American Mirror reports.

The AP reports many fly from Africa to Ecuador or other countries that don’t require a visa, then walk for four months through South American mountains and jungles to dangerous drug trafficking routes through Central America and Mexico.

Many are now sitting at the border separating Mexico and Guatemala, where a migrant from Cameroon named Mbi Deric Ambi told the AP he and others have been waiting for weeks to get through.

Ambi said the men at the border are waiting for officials to call their name to collect a travel document, and he’s been waiting for six weeks.

“We just have to be patient,” he said, “because there is nothing we can do.”