The number of immigrants seeking to enter the US is increasing

2023-09-24 21:38:17, Kosova & Bota CNA

Irapuato, Mexico - As the train's speeding approach was heard, about 5,000 mostly Venezuelan migrants hoping to reach the US began to get ready.

Families with small children sleeping on top of cardboard boxes and young men and women huddled in tents under a nearby bridge rushed to pack their belongings. After the train arrived on the outskirts of the Mexican city of Irapuato, some boarded the train cars with ease, while others dropped their bags. Some in wagons helped families with small children wrapped in winter clothes.

"Come up, come up", called the immigrants on top of the train to those below. Others shouted, "God bless Mexico!"

After three days of waiting for the train that some had worried would never come, this was their chance to get to the Mexican border with the United States.

Thousands more migrants were stranded in other parts of the country last week after Mexico's largest railroad said it grounded 60 freight trains.

The company, Ferromex, said so many migrants were traveling by train that the trains became unsafe. The company said it had seen "dozens of cases where people were injured or lost their lives" in just a few days.

When the train arrived on Saturday, local police were stationed around the makeshift camp where the migrants had been waiting, however when the train stopped for about 30 minutes, there was no attempt by the police to stop the migrants from boarding.

Despite violence from drug cartels and the dangers of trying to board freight trains, migrants have long used this form of travel to the northern border.

The suspension of train service marks the historic number of people heading to the northern border in an attempt to reach the United States for a better life.

When several thousand immigrants passed through Eagle Pass in Texas in just a few days, the border town declared a state of emergency.

In August, the US Border Patrol made 181,509 arrests on the border with Mexico.

Most pass through the Darien region (Darien Gap), a day trip between the Colombia-Panama border. Crossings through this region have increased so much that they could reach 500,000 people this year alone.

Colombia, which is dealing with the bulk of the exodus from Venezuela, has long appealed to the international community for help.

Panama and Costa Rica, meanwhile, have tightened migration restrictions and demanded that something be done about the hundreds of thousands of people who pass through the Darien region.

Meanwhile, President Biden's administration has asked Mexico and Central American countries to control migratory flows and now requires asylum seekers to register online./ VOA