MEXICO CITY ( AP ) — Venezuelan migrants often have a quick answer when asked to name the most difficult stretch of their eight- country journey to the U. S. border, and it’s not the , dayslong jungle trek , through Colombia and Panama with its venomous vipers, giant spiders and scorpions. It’s Mexico.
” In the forest, you have to plan for pets. In Mexico, you have to prepare for people”, Daniel Ventura, 37, said after three days walking through the , Darien Gap , and four months waiting in Mexico to provide the U. S. officially using the government’s website interview method,  , called CBP One. He and his family of six were headed to Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, where he has a sibling.
Mexico ‘s , assault on immigration , in recent months— at the , urging of the Biden administration  , — has hit Venezuelans particularly challenging. The growth shows how much the U. S. depends on Mexico to control movement, which has reached extraordinary levels and is a , best issue , for voters as President Joe Biden seeks election.
After reaching a record high in December, the number of workers who have been detained for improperly crossing the U.S. Mexico border has decreased considerably this year. The biggest reduction was among Venezuelans, whose detention plummeted to 3, 184 , in February , and 4, 422 in January from 49, 717 in December.
Although two months do not constitute a pattern and illegal crossings are still higher by traditional standards, Mexico’s plan to bring workers closer to its borders with Guatemala than the United States provides at least momentary relief for the Biden administration..
After Mexico’s strict visa requirements were lifted, a sizable portion of Venezuelans began traveling to the United States in 2021. In September, Venezuelans , briefly replaced Mexicans , as the largest nationality crossing the border.
Mexico’s efforts have included forcing migrants from trains, flying and busing them to the southern part of the country, and flying some home to , Venezuela.
Last week, Mexico said it would give about$ 110 a month for six months to each Venezuelan it deports, hoping they wo n’t come back. Andres Manuel López Obrador, president of Mexico, made the offer to Ecuadoris and Colombians on Tuesday.
López Obrador, who is prohibited from running in June elections, said,” If you support people in their places of origin, the migratory flow reduces significantly.”
Migrants demand payment from corrupt officials at Mexico’s frequent government checkpoints to prevent being rerouted to southern cities. Each setback is costly and frustrating.
Yessica Gutierrez, 30, who left Venezuela in a group of 15 family members that includes young children, said,” In the end, it is a business because wherever you get to, they want to take the last of what you have.” By hiking through brush, they managed to avoid some checkpoints.
The group is currently awaiting an appointment in Mexico City to cross the border into the United States. Candidates must be in central or northern Mexico in order to use the CBP One app. Therefore, Gutierrez’s group uses the app every day to check the app while sleeping in two donated tents across the street from a migrant shelter.
Since its introduction in January 2023, more than 500, 000 migrants have used the app to cross the border into the United States at land crossings with Mexico. They can stay in the U. S. for two years under a , presidential authority called parole, which entitles them to work.
Jose Alberto Uzcategui, a member of a family of 11, said,” I would rather pass through Mexico once than the jungle 10 times.” He had left a construction job in the Venezuelan city of Trujillo with his wife and sons, ages 5 and 7, in a group of 11. They are putting on a time bid in Mexico City until they have the money to buy a phone so they can use CBP One.
The Panamanian government estimates that 166 migrants from Venezuela make up the majority of the 73,016 migrants who entered the country in January and February, which is on pace to surpass the previous year’s record of more than 500, 000, which suggests Venezuelans are still fleeing a nation that has lost more than 7 million people due to political unrest and economic decline. Mexican authorities stopped Venezuelan migrants more than 56, 000 times in February, about twice as much as the previous two months, according to government figures.
” The underlying question here is: Where are the Venezuelans? They’re in Mexico, but where are they”? According to Stephanie Brewer, a journalist for the Washington Office on Latin America, a group that tracks human rights violations, in a statement.
In the first two months of 2024, Mexico deported only about 429 Venezuelans, leaving almost all of them waiting in Mexico.
Many people are concerned that if they venture north of Mexico City, they will be fleeced or sent back to southern Mexico. The U. S. admits 1, 450 people a day through , CBP One , with appointments that are granted two weeks out.
Even if they evade Mexican authorities, migrants feel threatened by gangs who kidnap, extort and commit other violent crimes.
Maria Victoria Colmenares, 27, who waited seven months in Mexico City for a CBP One appointment and supported her family by working as a waitress while her husband worked at a car wash, said,” You have to go town by town because the cartels need to put food on their plates.”
” It’s worth the wait because it brings a reward”, said Colmenares, who took a taxi from the Tijuana airport to the border crossing with San Diego, hours before her Tuesday appointment.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has touted , his own efforts , to explain the recent reduction in illegal crossings in his state, where at least 95 % of Border Patrol arrests of Venezuelans occur. Those have included installing , razor wire, putting a , floating barrier in the Rio Grande , and making plans to , build a new base , for members of the National Guard.
Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, has largely attributed Mexico’s decline in border arrests.
Despite the dangers, some Venezuelans continue to travel north.
Marbelis Torrealba, 35, arrived in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, with her sister and niece this week, carrying ashes of her daughter who drowned in a boat that capsized in Nicaragua. She claimed that Mexican law enforcement and gangs had roped them and that she had previously gone back to southern Mexico.
She was prepared to cross into the United States without permission because a shelter had made arrangements for them to enter the country on urgent humanitarian grounds.
” I already had the worst experience: Watching your child pass away in front of you without being able to do anything.”
