ALERT - Mass Migration Event – Caravan 37 (Day 7 / 28JUL24)
ALERT - Mass Migration Event – Caravan 37 (Day 7 / 28JUL24)
Background: This is an alert to report a mass migration event regarding the formation of Caravan No. 37, that began on Sunday, July 21, 2024, comprised of several thousand migrants that departed Hidalgo, Chiapas, Mexico with the intention of reaching the U.S. border at or near Tijuana, Baja California Norte and San Diego, California. ???
This is the 37th caravan that has been tracked by the U.S.-Mexico Center of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, Houston since we began tracking the migrant mass movement phenomenon in 2017. Of particular interest to our continuing analysis and reporting is whether migrant caravan organizers, including individuals, charity organizations or non-profit organizations, are forming caravans as a result of impending or actual U.S. government immigration policy changes or if the cartels are forming caravans for their own operational purposes, or any other purpose.
Critical Facts (Combined Sources):
Caravan Name: None?
Date of Departure: July 21, 2024
Destination: Tijuana-San Diego[i]
Mexico City, Mexico is the first major stop for Caravan 37 marchers where they intend to apply for asylum on the CBP One App in Mexico City or northern Mexico, then proceed to cross into the U.S. at or near San Diego, California.
Place of Departure: Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas, Mexico (Mexico-Guatemala Border)
Number of Migrant Marchers: 3,000 at onset
Demographics: Men, men and women with infants and children, family groups
Nationalities: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and other origin countries yet to be identified. One report mentions marchers from Central America, South America and Africa without further details.
Sponsors: “Activists” not further defined as of onset. Caravan formation reportedly announced on social media, site unknown.[ii] The use of social media is typical of organizers or smugglers to assemble migrants into large groups and move those group as a “caravan” to maximize success with bureaucracies and to protect against attacks by cartels, or rival cartels.
Pull Factors: Impending & perceived punitive immigration policy change after the U.S. election
Some migrants in Caravan 37 stated that they seek to reach the U.S. before the November elections for fear of Trump being elected and following through with his stated threats to close the border to asylum-seekers.[iii]
Marchers interviewed state they fear that, if elected, Trump will stop the use of the CBP-One Application to register their asylum claims and that he will also return to the “Remain in Mexico” policy that was enacted during his administration, requiring asylum seekers to stay outside of the U.S. while their asylum claims are being reviewed or processed.[iv]
Push Factors: Economic insecurity.
Traction: Day 7 (July 28, 2024)
Caravan 37 departed Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas on July 21st and reached Tapachula, Chiapas the same day.[v]
Caravan 37 departed Tapachula on or about July 23rd with the intention of walking at least 40 kilometers (Approximately 24 miles) which would place the group in, or near Huixtla, Chiapas on or about July 25th.
Reports indicate that the Guardia Nacional, or Mexico’s National Guard, has allowed the Caravan 37 marchers unimpeded forward travel as they pass units or checkpoints along the route.
On day 7, or July 28th, Caravan 37 began to shape-shift and break-up into smaller nodes, traveling in different directions or vectors.[vi] Of the 3,000 original marchers:
Reports indicate that the several groups either voluntarily vectored back to continue seeking travel visas which have not been granted since they arrived in Mexico, or they were directed back south by Mexican immigration authorities that they have encountered while walking through Chiapas. Meanwhile Mexican National Guard and immigration authorities are more aggressively performing immigration inspections on road and railways in northern Mexico than in the south.[vii]
Mexico Cartel Clashes Near Caravan Migrant Routes
On July 24th (Day 3 of Caravan 37 traction) Guatemala President Arévalo told reporters that approximately 600 Mexicans had abandoned their village of Amatenango del Valle, Chiapas Mexico, traveled south, and crossed the border east into Guatemala at Ampliación Nueva Reforma, Chiapas, just north of Huixtla, Chiapas (the same day Caravan 37 reached Huixtla). The refugees are being provided support just inside of Guatemala at Cuilco, after having been displaced by firefights between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG.) Reports indicate that some of the affected families said that they were forced to flee their village because cartel fighters forced them to work checkpoints or roadblocks (thought to be for the purposes of detecting and reporting the arrival of enemy fighters at outer perimeter entryways into the area) and to serve as human shields while the criminals battled their rivals.[viii]
Archbishop Jaime Calderón Calderón of the Catholic Diocese of Tapachula in Chiapas stated that "the permanent presence of drug cartels, disputing territory in the mountainous region of Chiapas” is being done with the “apparent complicity of the National Guard and the Mexican military, as well as that of the federal and state governments, with locals and migrants being intimidated, threatened and forced to participate as human shields in the confrontations of the drug cartels." Meanwhile, Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador appears unmoved by the violent displacement of Mexican citizens and blames the reporting on his political adversaries.[ix]
This event is the second such mass civil displacement of the removal of a compete residential population of townspeople in Chiapas during 2024. Cartel clashes have become more frequent in Chiapas, since the roadways and pathways that traverse the southern border are the principal land routes for the smuggling of drugs and migrants entering Mexico from Central America. In June 2024, over 4,000 residents fled their homes in the town of Tila, Chiapas as a result of being similarly displaced by warring cartel surrogates and factions vying for dominance of these illegal trade routes along the Guatemala-Mexico border.[x]
领英推荐
[i] Migrant caravan expected to arrive at US southern border in coming months | NewsNation Now
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[ii] Una caravana multitudinaria de migrantes camina desde el sur de México a la frontera con EE.UU. para pedir asilo.
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[iii] Hundreds of migrants leave southern Mexico on foot in a new caravan headed for the US border
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[iv] ibid 1.
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[vi] Caravana migrante comienza a reducirse; se dispersan en 3 municipios de Chiapas
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[vii] Ibid 1.
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[viii] Mexico’s president downplays cartel violence that drove nearly 600 Mexicans into Guatemala
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?[ix] Mexicans flee to neighboring Guatemala to avoid being 'human shields,' bishop says. National Catholic Reporter.
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[x] Over 4,000 residents flee a town in southern Mexico after armed gangs start shooting, burn homes
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