Small town in southern Mexico hosts thousands of migrants
As migrants, especially Venezuelans, struggle to come to terms with a new U.S. policy discouraging border crossings, one small town in southern Mexico is unexpectedly playing host to thousands of migrants camped far from the U.S. border.
San Pedro Tapanatepec had 7,000 migrants, about 75% Venezuelans when The Associated Press visited at the beginning of October. By Monday, Mayor Humberto Parrazales estimated the number had grown to 14,000. The AP could not independently verify that figure.
While many Venezuelans had planned to make their way to the U.S. border, the new U.S. policy says only those applying online, and arriving by air, will be admitted. Border crossers will simply be expelled. That leaves many camped out in five large tent shelters, wondering what they’ll do next.
They while away the daytime heat with just a few electric fans to keep the temperature down.
San Pedro Tapanatepec is not where they wanted to wind up. The heat-drenched town in Oaxaca state is only about 180 miles (300 kilometres) from the border with Guatemala. Many migrants had thought they had forever left Guatemala behind on the long trek that took many of them from the Darian Gap in Panama, through Central America, to Mexico.
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