Caravan Update: Africans, Bangladeshis, Syrians, Afghans in Mexico Awaiting U.S. Asylum

The chronic onslaught of illegal immigrants heading to the United States isn’t just coming from Central America, the caravan includes large groups of Africans, Indians, Bangladeshis, Afghans, Pakistanis and Syrians that have made it all the way to Mexico. Africa is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism, according to the State Department, and Bangladesh is a south Asian Islamic country that’s well known as a recruiting ground for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). “More arrive every day” from these countries, according to a mainstream Mexican newspaper report that cites the country’s immigration officials.

Mexican media reports that hundreds of illegal immigrants from Africa, India, Bangladesh and other non-Central American nations are currently in Mexico awaiting asylum in the U.S. Most are holed up in Tapachula, which is in the southeast Mexican state of Chiapas bordering Guatemala. One group featured recently in a Mexican newspaper article took nine months to reach Chiapas. They went from Angola to Brazil where they spent four months before traveling to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica then Nicaragua. Once they reached Honduras, the African illegal aliens took three days to purchase a photo identification and bus ticket to Guatemala, where they say it was easy passage to Mexico.

Another group featured in the same story came from Cameroon, home of the extremist groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa (ISWA). The illegal aliens say they flew from Cameroon to Ecuador before traveling through Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala and finally Mexico. All of the Africans plan to continue into the United States where they expect to “achieve refuge,” according to the news report. Of interesting note is that the Africans accuse Mexican authorities of racism and discrimination, asserting that migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and Cuba eat first and receive better overall treatment and accommodations. The major Mexican newspaper cited earlier refers to the situation along that country’s southern border as a “pressure cooker” on the verge of an unprecedented migratory collapse. Besides tens of thousands of Central Americans and Cubans, around 800 migrants from Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, Pakistan, Syria, Nepal and Pakistan, among others, await U.S. asylum in Mexico.

A separate Latin American news report estimates that north of 1,000 migrants from those nations are currently in Mexico with the goal of gaining asylum in the U.S. “Mexican authorities restrict access to the shelters that activists calculate house more than 1,000 migrants that aren’t Central American,” the article states. A special permit is required to interview them, according Mexico’s immigration agency, but the media outlet managed to interview several of the Africans in Tapachula. Their journey to Mexico is similar to other non-Central American migrants interviewed by other Spanish news outlets. “The majority plan to get to the United States despite the fact that the country’s president, Donald Trump, rejects them because they are considered a threat to security,” the article states.

Other Mexican media reports describe the camps that house illegal aliens from across the Atlantic. Many of the African women are pregnant and hundreds of children and adolescents are becoming inpatient and appear malnourished. “Their objective is to cross Mexico and ask for asylum in the United States,” according to one report, that says a dozen pregnant African women recently demanded special accommodations from Mexican authorities. All of them were more than seven months pregnant. Another Spanish news story reveals that 150 African migrants recently blocked an immigration station in Chiapas to demand permits that allow them to continue their journey north through Mexico and into the United States. “The migrants formed a human chain that impedes the entrance and exit of buses that transfer undocumented immigrants arrested in the rest of the country for deportation,” the story reads.