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A group of 100 migrants was recently dropped into the cartel-infested resort town of Acapulco as Mexican authorities break up caravans trying to reach the US before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The Mexican government has started rounding up and transporting caravan migrants to Acapulco to try to thwart their plans to make it to the US border before Trump’s vowed immigration crackdown — and threatened 25% tariffs against Mexico if the border crisis doesn’t abate, according to The Associated Press.
In recent years, the once-serene beaches of Acapulco, which had been popular with American tourists, have become choked with cartel members engaging in shootouts with rivals.
The coastal city, which was also decimated by Hurricane Otis in 2023, is now riddled with migrants sleeping in the streets, too.
The Mexican government has adopted the practice of “dispersion and exhaustion” to keep migrants from making their way north and accumulating in large numbers in one place, said Tonatiuh Guillén, former chief of Mexico’s immigration agency, to the AP.
The Mexican government is hoping that its efforts to help lower US border crossings will shield them from Trump’s tariff threats, Guillen said.
Trump doubled down Tuesday on the threat, saying he plans to order “very serious tariffs” on Mexico for “allowing millions of people to pour into our country.
“Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country,” the president-elect said. “They can stop them, and we’re going to put very serious tariffs on Mexico and Canada, because Canada, they come through Canada too, and the drugs that are coming through are at record numbers.”
Venezuelan migrant Ender Antonio Castañeda, 28, told the AP that Mexican authorities left his group stranded in recent days in the crime-ridden beach town.
Castañeda eventually found his way out of Acapulco by hiring a van driver using money he had just received from his family.
Mexican authorities have broken up many of the caravans by letting their members walk for days until they exhaust themselves, according to AP. Then, authorities offer them buses to other cities in Mexico, where they can have their cases reviewed.
On Monday, several dozen of the migrants who showed up to various Mexico immigration offices said they received no help.
“Immigration [officials] told us they were going to give us a permit to transit the country freely for 10, 15 days, and it wasn’t like that,” said a 28-year-old Venezuelan, Ender Antonio Castañeda.
“They left us dumped here without any way to get out,” he said from Acapulco. “They won’t sell us [bus] tickets, they won’t sell us anything.”
The Mexican government’s latest action comes after more than 10 caravans have formed in southern Mexico since October.
