![]() In a statement on August 17, the Guatemalan Foreign Relations Ministry expressed concern that it had not been notified of the expulsions. A humanitarian worker said one woman who was expelled said that Mexican immigration agents told her group they were intentionally being taken “to the most remote border crossing” so they would “learn their lesson.” The migrant shelter in El Ceibo can house about 30 people. Many of those expelled have been forced to sleep on the street upon arrival in El Ceibo, a remote village of just a few hundred people. Mexican immigration authorities have not coordinated these expulsions with the Guatemalan government nor notified the Guatemalan, Honduran, or Salvadoran consulates nor arranged for onward transport. Many non-Guatemalans have told aid workers that Mexican immigration agents confiscated their identity documents before expelling them to Guatemala. Others have said they had already applied for or received asylum in Mexico, but that immigration agents told them their Mexican asylum documents were fake or invalid and sometimes confiscated and destroyed them, before detaining and expelling the asylum seekers. Some of those expelled have told humanitarian workers in Guatemala they had asked US and Mexican immigration agents for asylum but were told that would not be possible. Since February the Biden administration has expelled more than 600,000 people at the border under an order issued under the administration of former President Donald Trump to justify expelling asylum seekers during the pandemic without giving them a chance to seek protection. ![]() On August 12, US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that the United States was increasing its use of expulsion flights to Mexico’s interior under purported public health authority, to address “recidivism.” He also said the United States was urging Mexico to increase its interception of migrants. Once on the other side of the border, many have had nowhere to sleep and no means of getting to their home countries. Some have been expelled while waiting on asylum applications in Mexico. Mexican immigration agents have denied many of those expelled the chance to seek asylum and forced them to cross into Guatemala without notifying consular officials or the Guatemalan government. Mexican authorities have also expelled groups of migrants this way through the border crossing in Talismán, Chiapas, also on Mexico’s southern border. The authorities have then forced the migrants to cross the border by foot. At times, the buses have arrived late at night. In the beginning of August 2021, the United States began expelling some Central American migrants via air to two cities in southern Mexico – Tapachula, Chiapas, and Villahermosa, Tabasco – which are a relatively short drive away from the Guatemalan border.Īlso in August, Mexican immigration authorities began busing at least 300 migrants of various nationalities each day, including some expelled from the United States and others apprehended in Mexico, to the Mexican side of the remote El Ceibo border crossing in the Lacandón Jungle. Now he has gone a step further, replicating those abusive policies on Mexico’s own southern border.” “For years, the Mexican president has facilitated some of the United States’ most abusive anti-immigration policies. “Abandoning vulnerable families in the remote Guatemalan jungle without money, food, or shelter and ignoring their requests for asylum is a new low for President López Obrador,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and US President Joe Biden should immediately stop these dangerous and unlawful expulsions and ensure that future deportations are carried out in line with Mexican, US, and international law. Those expelled include families and unaccompanied children, some of whom were first expelled by air from the United States. (Washington, DC) – Mexico has been carrying out mass expulsion of migrants and asylum seekers of various nationalities to a remote area of the jungle in Guatemala, putting lives at risk, Human Rights Watch said today. © 2021 Courtesy of Alejandra Macías Delgadillo, Asylum Access México Buses sit on the Mexican side of the El Ceibo border crossing after having expelled migrants into Guatemala.
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