Approximately 3,000 Mexicans have been deported from the United States to Chiapas on approximately twenty flights in two months during President Donald Trump’s administration.
This Tuesday, an Eastern Air Express plane carrying 118 Mexicans arrived at Tapachula International Airport from Harlingen, Texas.
According to a count by airport authorities, this would be the 25th flight. Air deportations of Mexicans to the southern border began on February 20, just one month after the Republican took office.
To welcome Mexicans, agencies at all three levels of government are maintaining a welcome operation through the “Mexico Embraces You” program, which provides them with administrative, health, and even economic assistance through the Ministry of Welfare so they can return to their home states, as many are originally from the center and north of the country.
Authorities acknowledged that sending Mexicans to the Guatemalan border—even from northern and central states—is intended to inhibit irregular migration to the United States.
The measure has negatively impacted the flow of foreigners from Central and South America by up to 70 percent, according to data from the Belén migrant shelter. The facility housed an average of 350 foreigners, but the number has dropped to 120.
The effect has even been reversed, as the shelter has provided assistance to some 200 migrants who have returned to their countries on their own in the last three months.
Meanwhile, migrants originally from Venezuela stranded in Tapachula, who have lost hope for the American dream and do not want to wait for the long process of regularization in Mexico, have protested to demand deportation flights back to their countries.
Outside the National Migration Institute, foreigners are insisting that the Mexican government establish the necessary agreements with Nicolás Maduro’s government so that the planes that have left Mexico City can also leave Tapachula and Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the main cities in Chiapas where they estimate there are 4,000 Venezuelans.
