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Tension Rises as Immigrants from Central America are being held in Southern Mexico

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UC Irvine chapter.

A second caravan of immigrants from Central America has entered Mexico and is trying to make its way from Southern Mexico to the United States. The caravan is estimated to be composed of 1,500 men, women and children, all trying to seek refuge from bad governments and circumstances in their home countries. The caravan is composed of people from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Cuba all gathered in Mapastepec in Chiapas State.

Their goal is to gain temporary, humanitarian visas that will allow them to pass through Mexico and get to the border of the United States, where they hope to gain entry. Of course, the president of the United States is not happy with the caravan on immigrants seeking shelter in the country. He asked the Mexican government to do all they could to prevent immigrants from getting through Mexico and reaching the border; he even gave a speech when he believed Mexico was not doing enough to stop the flow of immigrants.

But Mexico is taking action to slow down the caravan of immigrants to the country by slowing down the process of giving humanitarian visas. Many immigrants who have been interviewed claim that this slowdown of visas is on purpose in order to stop them from crossing Mexico and reaching their destination. Trump threatened to close down the border if Mexico did not do more than just slowing the process of humanitarian visas, but has also claimed that the Mexican government is doing a good job overall.

Mexico has stated that they will make it a priority to give the elderly and unaccompanied minors their humanitarian visas first, being more vulnerable to the dangers of being in another country. Some have grown tired of waiting and have continued their journey North without their visas, even though there are in danger of being deported and harassed by others.

Unfortunately, there have been incidents where immigrants have lashed out on officials due to the accumulation of frustration, anger, impotence and feelings of helplessness. All these incidents have been formally documented and kept record of. There is not much to do to help these immigrants or to persuade officials to give more humanitarian visas as soon as possible. Hopefully this can be resolved in the near future and these people can receive the help they are looking for.

 

Emily Flores

UC Irvine '21

Emily is a third-year student at the University of California, Irvine. She is an English and Spanish Literature double major. She is currently learning Korean and would like to one day teach English in South Korea. In her free time, Emily loves reading, writing, and drawing. "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged cupid painted blind." -William Shakespeare
Christine Chen

UC Irvine '19

Christine is one of the Campus Correspondents for Her Campus at UC Irvine. In her free time, she enjoys reading books, listening to business tech podcasts, running, and making people smile! :)