Mexico busing asylum-seekers to border appointments

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The government of Mexico says it will provide safe and free bus rides to asylum-seekers headed to appointments at U.S. ports of entry.

The Ministry of the Interior said a new Emergency Safe Mobility Corridor will focus on ensuring the safety of families who would otherwise be traversing Mexico on their own. Foreign nationals making such a trip often are preyed on by criminals who extort or abuse them , according to migrant advocates and observers in the U.S.

“The objective of the project is to safeguard foreign persons who decide to travel by land to the port of entry where they are expected. Priority will be given to families traveling together,” the ministry and the National Migration Institute (INM) said in a joint communique on Monday.

The buses will leave from Tapachula near the Guatemala border and the southeastern city of Villahermosa where highways lead to the interior of Mexico. Municipal, state and federal authorities will escort the vehicles and travelers will be fed along the way, the Mexican government said.

To get on the bus, the asylum-seekers must show proof of their CBP One appointment in the U.S. INM will then give them a 20-day travel permit through the Forma Migratoria Multiple (FMM) in case of delays. The government didn’t say when the first bus will be leaving, but it added that 300 migrants in the southern states of Tabasco and Chiapas who requested an asylum appointment in the U.S. have received one in the past few days.

Juarez Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar hailed the announcement and said his city’s shelter network will have no problem accommodating the asylum-seekers.

“I think it is very positive to have orderly migration, with appointments,” Perez Cuellar said. “We have seen a considerable decrease (in migrants). We have space at Kiki Romero (gym), at Leona Vicario (shelter) and everywhere else. […] It is good that the Mexican and U.S. governments have this coordination, so we avoid disorderly migration.”

The Biden administration on June 4 implemented new guidelines to expedite the removal of foreign nationals who come into the U.S. between ports of entry.

Simultaneously, the Mexican government has been cracking down on unauthorized train riders who used to come to border cities like Juarez by the hundreds. Its police forces also patrol the Rio Grande levee in areas where migrants used to turn themselves in to the U.S. Border Patrol.

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