The Mexican border city of Piedras Negras began closing the migrant shelter on Sunday, after relocating more than half of those who arrived at the beginning of February with the aim of crossing into the United States.
The mayor of Piedras Negras, Claudio Bres Garza, reported that of the 1,672 migrants who arrived in this border town with the United States since February 4, there are only 787, so one of the two warehouses has been closed.
The migrants, mostly Central Americans, were sent in recent buses to other Mexican cities such as Reynosa, Hermosillo, Juárez, Monterrey, Acuña and Matamoros where they will have greater access to job offers, he said.
At least 70 more were deported and a hundred already undertook voluntary return to their countries, said the mayor on the relocation campaign of migrants who entered this Mexican city in the northern state of Coahuila.
This relocation was reflected in the retirement in Eagle Pass (Texas) of at least 250 members of the United States National Guard, he added.
The Institute of Migration in Mexico reported that until Friday it had approved the visitor card for humanitarian reasons to 777 Central Americans and Caribbean and that 607 applicants were rejected so they must leave the country in the next 30 days.
Mayor Bres Garza explained that the contingent that remained in the shelter, is divided into those who are awaiting their resolution, and who have already received the refusal and weigh the options of returning to their homeland.
The authorities of the three levels of the Mexican government, municipality, state and federal, reported that the total closure of this migratory shelter will be next Thursday, February 21, when the total of migrants have already exhausted their legal processes.
The commissioner of the Mexican Federal Police, Arturo Jiménez, informed that a caravan of 567 members will arrive in the next 48 hours to Saltillo, Coahuila, although its final destination is unknown.
Doctors Without Borders criticized the Mexican authorities’ actions towards the members of the Central American exodus, saying that in Piedras Negras they were kept confined against their will in some warehouses used as hostels.
More than 1,600 people “were held against their will in an abandoned factory, surrounded by police and Mexican soldiers, confined as if they were criminals,” said Segio MartÃn, coordinator of the MSF.
The NGO member said that many of the migrants were taken to cities that are unsafe and where they have been vulnerable to crime and violence such as Reynosa and Matamoros. (Mexico), (EFE).
