In the first Mexican shelter that migrants reached after migrating through the Guatemalan jungle, about 150 migrants slept in its dormitories and another 150 lay on thin mattresses spread across the floor of his chapel.
In just six weeks of the year, the shelter, known as ‘The 72’, housed nearly 1,500 migrants, compared to 3,000 last year. It reduced its dormitory by half due to the pandemic. This was not a problem last year because few migrants showed up, but this year it has been overwhelming.
“We have a huge stream and there is no capacity,” said Gabriel Romero, the priest, who runs the shelter in Tenosique, a city in the southern state of Tabasco. “The situation could get out of hand.”
Latin America’s migrants – from the Caribbean, South America and Central America and beyond – are on the move again. After a year of pandemic-induced paralysis, those who come into contact with migrants on a daily basis believe that the current northward can return to the high levels seen in late 2018 and early 2019. The difference is that it would happen during a pandemic.
Protective health measures put in place to slow down the spread of Covid-19, including the drastically reduced space at shelters along the route, mean less safe spaces for migrants in transit.
“The flow is increasing and the problem is that there is less capacity than before to meet their needs,” said Sergio Martin, head of Médecins Sans Frontières in Mexico.
Some shelters remain closed by local authorities and almost all have had to reduce the number of migrants they can help. Applications for visas, asylum or any other official paperwork are delayed due to the reduced capacity of the government due to the pandemic.
‘This is not a migration to Covid; it is a migration in the middle of the pandemic, which makes it all the more vulnerable, ”said Ruben Figueroa, an activist in the Meso-American migrant movement.
Some migrants have expressed hope for a friendlier reception from the new US government or started moving when some borders reopened. Others are driven by two major hurricanes that plagued Central America in November and deepen the desperation caused by the economic impact of the pandemic.
Olga Rodríguez, 27, has been walking for a month since leaving Honduras with her husband and four children, aged three to eight, after Hurricane Eta flooded their home. They arrived in Mexico and applied for asylum, but were told it would take six months. Forced to sleep in the street, they changed their minds.
“The kids got cold, we got wet and I told my husband if we were going to be in the cold and rain, we’d better walk,” she said from Coatzacoalcos. Now their goal is the United States.
Joe Biden’s administration has taken steps to withdraw some of Donald Trump’s strictest policies, but a policy remains allowing U.S. border officials to return almost all of them immediately due to the pandemic. The U.S. government is concerned that the more hopeful message could lead to a rush to the border, saying it will take time to implement new policies.
The number of people arrested at the US-Mexico border in January has already more than doubled from the same month last year and 20,000 above January 2019.
Last week, the Biden administration announced that it would slowly process about 25,000 asylum seekers forced to await their trial in Mexico under Trump.
Further south, Panama reopened its border at the end of January, and since then groups have stepped out of the dense Darién jungle that divides Panama and Colombia.
In January, Guatemalan authorities blocked the first caravan of the year, sending nearly 5,000 Hondurans back to their country in ten days.
But while Guatemala was focused on the caravan, other migrants, as always, moved north in small, discreet groups. It was during the caravan last month that shelters in southern Mexico began to increase their numbers with mostly Honduran migrants.
Small groups of migrants are more vulnerable to criminals who kidnap and blackmail them.
At the end of January, 19 bodies were found near the border between Mexico and Texas, which were shot and burned. Most are believed to be Guatemalan migrants. In connection with the case, a dozen state police officers were arrested.
Sergio Martin of Médecins Sans Frontières said that despite the pandemic, migrants are still threatened with secrecy. “We anticipate an increase in violence,” he said.