A caravan full of 1,000 migrants is heading to the border from southern Mexico. The group departed on Tuesday and is made up of people from Venezuela, Honduras, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti and Guatemala, according to the newspaper Vallarta Daily.
The group left Tapachula and headed north to Arriaga, Chiapas, where several users shared videos on social media of the huge crowd of migrants traveling to the United States:
DEVELOPING! First migrant caravan of the year left southern Mexico with a thousand people heading to the US.
They’ll be at the border within a week or two. A favorite hotspot for these nationalities is Piedras Negras/Eagle Pass, but no direct confirmation so far. pic.twitter.com/WSNSeLGaff
— PXP Security & Inves (@PXPSecurityInve) March 2, 2023
The members of the caravan are traveling illegally. According to the Mexican newspaper, many of the migrants on board have documents from Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM). However, the documents only allow them to reside in the state of Chiapas. They are not permitted to travel within Mexico. Other passengers decided to travel without any documents.
Denis is one of them. He is from Ecuador and walked more than 50 kilometers on the second day. He is traveling with his wife, daughter and a group of nine people. His destination is the United States, although he told EFE, that his goal is to make it out of Mexico:
It is difficult for those who want to migrate here, because there are people who want to leave their country with little money, but now things have changed, especially with the measures taken by Mexico and the United States.
There are many Venezuelan migrants in the caravan heading to the United States. Victor Hernandez is one of them. According to EFE, he was a broadcaster in Venezuela but due to the situation in his country he ran out of money and had no choice but to emigrate: "We left our country, with my four children and my wife, because the country is chaotic and because of the insecurity."
