Scared to stay in Mexico, afraid of Trump's policies, some migrants look to return home

Daily, Nidia Montenegro spends hours checking her mobile phone, hoping to accumulate a lengthy-awaited appointment with US border officials to gaze asylum within the United States.

The 52-year-oldschool Venezuelan migrant in Mexico says she fears her appointment is no longer going to reach sooner than President-elect Donald Trump takes place of work on Jan. 20, when he has vowed to scrap a slew of purposes that luxuriate in allowed migrants to enter the US legally – including the government app that Montenegro is the exhaust of to take a sight at and safe her appointment.

That can perchance perchance stride away hundreds of migrants love Montenegro in limbo and going through the prefer of attempting to substandard into the US illegally, staying in Mexico, or returning dwelling.

Given these alternatives, Montenegro says she would return dwelling, more petrified of the violence she has encountered while touring through Mexico than the hardship she left within the support of in Venezuela.

“I am traumatized. If I construct no longer safe the appointment, I will stride support,” she talked about, disheartened.

“There is constantly the threat of cartels that kidnap us,” added the girl, who says despite pondering about returning dwelling she does no longer luxuriate in the cash to enact so.

A dozen migrants interviewed in Mexico by Reuters talked about they’d decide to reach to their worldwide locations despite the ongoing disorders that drove them emigrate, equivalent to poverty, lack of employment, insecurity, and political crises.

That is fair too runt a sample size to attract determined conclusions of how migrants will react after Trump takes place of work, and plenty more and plenty will depend upon exactly what insurance policies he implements and how.

However it does highlight the laborious choices liable to face many after Jan. 20.

The violence in Mexico weighs carefully on any resolution.

Montenegro urged Reuters she become kidnapped along with two nephews and dozens of others, including adolescence, on the day she arrived in southern Mexico from Guatemala two months within the past. Two days later, the community managed to safe away.

Now she lives confined in a shelter within the southern inform of Chiapas, fearing criminals within the predicament will kidnap her over again.

Organized crime has established intensive human trafficking networks across Mexico, making the dart north through the country treacherous. Mexico is tormented by violence, with spherical 30,000 folks murdered a year and over 100,000 folks officially registered as lacking.

Many migrants are extorted, overwhelmed, raped, compelled to commit crimes, and even killed. Mexican government makes an are attempting to dull the advent of migrants on the US border, by busing and flying non-Mexican migrants to the country’s south, add to the probability.

Mexico’s presidency and Nationwide Migration Institute did now indirectly reply to requests for comment.

The International Group for Migration urged Reuters that within the closing seven years, it has assisted several thousand migrants — particularly Central People — return voluntarily from Mexico to their dwelling worldwide locations, including victims of violence. On the opposite hand, it declined to manufacture insist figures.

“I verbalize every day and quiz God to take me support, I construct no longer are looking out for to be here anymore… here’s atrocious,” talked about Yuleidi Moreno, a Venezuelan migrant who fears staying in Mexico. Thru tears she talked about she had been the sufferer of violence, but declined to present any additional runt print.

A Venezuelan unswerving accustomed to migration disorders talked about that for the time being, between 50 and 100 compatriots set aside a query to what’s named “voluntary return” every week from Mexico, both retaining charges themselves or with inform aid. “There are serious calamity cases love kidnappings, sexual exploitation, a myriad of disorders, and a few are looking out for to reach straight away.”

No matter the dangers, others will persist, whether or no longer becoming a member of caravans, paying a human trafficker, or clinging to the hopes of a US government border appointment.

“I belief I will reach sooner than Mr. Trump takes place of work,” talked about Johana, a younger Venezuelan migrant planning to substandard from Guatemala to Mexico this week. “If or no longer it is no longer by appointment, there would possibly perchance be constantly a fashion,” she added.