Christmas Day meant the same as any other for thousands of migrants walking through southern Mexico: more trudging under a hot sun
“This journey has been really hard for us migrants. We need the (Mexican) immigration office and the government to have some pity on us, and give us a safe conduct pass,” said Jessica García, a migrant from Venezuela.
Mexico says it detected 680,000 migrants moving through the country in the first 11 months of 2023.
At around 6,000 people, the migrant caravan that set out Sunday was the largest one since June 2022, when a similarly sized group departed Tapachula.
And like the 2022 caravan — which started as U.S. President Joe Biden hosted leaders in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas — this year’s Christmas caravan came a few days before U.S. officials are to meet with their Mexican counterparts in Mexico City to explore ways of stemming the number of migrants showing up at the U.S. southwest border.
The Mexican government has already said it is willing to help try to block migrants from crossing Mexico; the government had little choice, afte r U.S. officials briefly closed two vital Texas railway border crossings, claiming they were overwhelmed by processing migrants.
That put a chokehold on freight moving from Mexico to the United States, as well as grain needed to feed Mexican livestock moving south. The rail crossings have since been reopened, but the message was clear.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in Mexico City Wednesday to hammer out new agreements to control the surge of migrants seeking entry into the United States. The U.S. delegation will also include Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall.
This month, as many as 10,000 migrants were arrested per day at the U.S. southwest border.