Around 3,000 migrants began a protest procession from Tapachula, Mexico last week, demanding changes in the treatment of migrants and an end to detention centers like the one that caught fire last month, killing 40 migrants. The migrants, mostly from Central America, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Colombia, are aiming to reach Mexico City to demand justice for the victims of the fire and changes in the way migrants are treated.
In the past, many participants in such processions have continued to the US border. However, Mexican authorities have used paperwork restrictions and highway checkpoints to bottle up tens of thousands of frustrated migrants in Tapachula, making it hard for them to travel to the US border.
The migrants are demanding the dissolving of the country’s immigration agency, whose officials have been blamed, and some charged with homicide, in the March 27 fire.
