Reverse journey: Finding US border closed, thousands of migrants in Mexico head back south

Finding the U.S. border effectively closed to them by drastic measures put in place by the Trump administration, thousands of Latin American migrants trapped in Mexico are gearing up for the hard trek back to their countries, with some already crossing into Guatemala, the first stop in Central America, while others are trying to earn enough money for the trip home.

Conditions are difficult for the estimated 350,000 migrants who have found themselves trapped in Mexico after President Donald Trump shut down CBP One, an app that permitted asylum seekers to initiate the process before reaching the border. The measure ended in one fell swoop the aspirations of thousands who for months had been waiting for an appointment with an immigration official to plead their cases.

While no one has an official breakdown of the different nationalities that make up the mass wave of migrants who are stranded in Mexico, in the past few years the trend of people moving towards the border has been dominated by Venezuelans, Haitians, Colombians, Ecuadorians and Cubans as well as nationals from different Central American countries.

Many of those stranded don’t quite know what to do next. Some are considering seeking asylum in Mexico, but those are relatively few. Many feel overwhelmed by the hostility they are facing and by fears of being kidnapped by the different criminal organizations that prey on migrants, said Pablo Zuñiga, a lawyer with the migrant and displaced advocate organization DHIA based out of Ciudad Juarez.

“Last year, eight out of ten people we helped had at some point been kidnapped ,” Zuñiga said. “They were freed only after they, or their families, paid thousands of dollars. Having discovered the large amounts of money that are ready to be made, the practice is unlikely to end anytime soon.”

A decision to stay in Mexico also comes with its own set of legal hindrances. While the country does provide asylum to those fleeing their countries, migrants must apply within the first 30 business days of their arrival. Seeing the country only as the gateway to the United States, most migrants have stayed for months or even for more than a year without starting the process.

While a late asylum application can still be made, applicants would have to explain why they failed to make the request within the allotted time, and those that took the longest time in applying normally have a lesser chance of obtaining a favorable decision, Zuñiga said.

José, a 30-year old Venezuelan who asked for his last name not to be used, said he and his wife had decided to apply for asylum in Mexico even though they have already have five months in the country. “We are telling officials we have just learned about this process just now,” he said. “That is our justification for not applying before.”

The couple have a 2-year-old baby girl and have decided to stay where they are, near Cancun, because they don’t have much of a choice. “It is very complicated for us to leave. First of all, we don’t have passports and they are not giving out letters of safe-conduct, and we have ran out of money. We have lost all of our savings and we have sold all we had to come here”.

While there are no figures as to the number of migrants trapped on Mexico, pro immigrant organizations believe the number fluctuates around 350,000. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says that up to 280,000 people had been waiting to obtain an appoint through CBP One in Mexico and in other countries at the time of its deactivation. The app, which was used by as many as one million migrants to gain entry into the United States, is believed to have helped in reducing illegal crossings.

Among those waiting for an appointment were some of the more than 7.7 million of Venezuelans who have left their country in recent years to escape from the economic devastation, violence and political persecution they attribute to the socialist revolution started by late president Hugo Chavez more than 25 years ago.

Condition there caused what has been called as the worst humanitarian crisis seen in the hemisphere, but some Venezuelans told the Miami Herald that they prefer going back home than staying in Mexico.

July Rodríguez, director of Venezuelan Migrant Support in Mexico, said that in most cases flying back to Caracas is not an option. This is because a large number of migrants don’t have a valid passport, a document the Caracas regime had intermittently stopped issuing, and because the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico is refusing to issue a letter of safe conduct to return home, which for those not having a passport is an essential requirement to purchase a plane ticket.

“They are not issuing the letter of safe-conduct due to the sad fact is that Venezuelan officials don’t want those Venezuelans who left their country on foot returning to the homeland,” Rodriguez said. “The Mexican government has said it would be willing even to pay for the return flight of those wanting to return to Venezuela, but they cannot do it if they person doesn’t have the documents.”

The Miami Herald attempted to contact officials at the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico through a Whatsapp chat setup for migrants, asking what are the requirements to obtain a letter of safe-conduct. The messages, however, went unanswered.

Help from the Mexican government in buying plane tickets would be welcome news to José Zambrano, 35, a Venezuelan migrant who had been waiting for his CBP One appointment in Toluca Lerdo, 40 miles west of Mexico City. Zambrano has already decided to return home to his 31-year-old wife and two children in Cabudare, a town in the central Venezuelan state of Lara, but he is having a hard time getting the $500 or so dollars that he will need.

He is currently working as a salesman at a Mexican equivalent of a dollar store for 12 hours a day, follow by another four-hour shift printing cups at the back of the shop. He does this six days a week, for which he earns the equivalent of $300 per month. But he sends more than two thirds of what he earns to his family in Venezuela, leaving him less than enough to live on, and even less to save for plane fare.

Most weeks he finds himself wanting to send even more to this family because life has become so expensive.

His wife, he said, keeps telling him “that what I send her is not even enough to feed the children, but then she learns that I don’t even have enough to eat at night and she starts to cry,” Zambrano said. “I tell her not to worry about me because I am a man and I can take it, but that our children can’t do that.”

In light of the prohibitive cost of airfare or the difficulties of getting the proper documents to buy the tickets, some migrants have already chosen to head back the way they came, crossing into Guatemala from the Mexican border town of Tapachula, hoping to earn enough money along the way to eventually buy an airplane ticket or a boat ride out of Panama, the last Central American nation before crossing into Colombia.

Last Thursday, dozens of migrants had already crossed Guatemala and Honduras and were on a road near the border with Nicaragua. Shared videos showed them walking fast, forming an informal line that made them look like they were competing in a marathon, except for the heavy bags and backpacks they carried and the occasional child in tow.

Ronald Alvarez, who two weeks ago told the Miami Herald he and his family had decided to head back to his native Venezuela, was among those hoping to cross into Nicaragua. He said that about 150 people were around him and his wife and four-year-old son hoping to do the same, but from what he has been seeing on social media this is just the beginning.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if in a few weeks we saw the same number of people traveling south on their way back that we had going north when we were trying to reach the United States,” he said.

Alvarez is among those who hope to reach Panama and then catch a boat ride into Colombia. He is dead set against traveling on foot through the Darien Gap — a dangerous, predator-filled jungle on the Panamanian-Colombian border that he and his family first crossed on their way to the U.S.

Yet Alvarez is not sure how he will pay for the boat ride. A boat seat costs about $300 per person and the little money he and his family have been able to earn on their way south has barely been enough to cover their daily needs.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino is concerned that the lack of roads across the Darien Gap will turn the jungle into a bottleneck for Venezuelan migrants seeking to return to their home country. He has told reporters his government is analyzing the feasibility of setting up flights to Cucuta, a town in Colombia that borders Venezuela.

“Sending them to Venezuela … is not possible from Panama because we have no contact whatsoever with the Venezuelan governmen,” Mulino said. “However, we are studying possibilities to address this reverse flow by flying them.”