The National Guard have been active in trying to contain the movement of migrants from the southern border. file photo
A Catholic priest in Chiapas says National Guard troops and National Immigration Institute (INM) agents threatened to arrest him when he provided help to women and children in the migrant caravan which left Tapachula on October 23.
Heyman Vázquez Medina, the parish priest in Huixtla, was transporting migrants to Pijijiapan, the caravan’s destination on Tuesday, 27 kilometers from Hermenegildo Galeana where it spent Monday night. The women and children were stranded on the highway and suffering from dehydration and heat stroke as well as coughs, diarrhea and fever.
Vázquez said his pickup truck was surrounded by officials on the highway. “I was carrying water and medicines for the migrants, and on the way I distributed them. There were a lot of sick children and I told them to climb onto my pickup truck, but since there were a lot of them I made four trips. Someone from the National Guard saw me on the last trip, three kilometers from the entrance to Pijijiapan. They lined up their cars on the highway and the agents of that organization and the INM surrounded me,” he said.
Officials started to take migrants from the back of the truck to put them on to a bus to be returned to Tapachula, the newspaper La Jornada reported.
Vázquez said he called caravan leader Irineo Mújica for help. “They wanted me to get all the people out of my truck … I told them that I was taking them to the doctor because they needed attention … I called Irineo Mújica, who was not very far and arrived with a group of migrants. There was an altercation and [the authorities] had to give in,” he said.
“I am not afraid of you and you will not intimidate me either. I’m taking the children because they need medical attention. You don’t offer it to them,” the priest said to the authorities, the newspaper El Universal reported.
He added that an INM official told National Guardsmen to take him to the local prosecutor’s office but instead they took his license plate number and said he would be reported.
The National Guard is under investigation for another incident in Chiapas on Sunday, when a Cuban migrant was killed after troops opened fire on a pick up truck transporting migrants near Pijijiapan. Four other people were wounded in the incident, which is now being investigated by the National Human Rights Commission.
Octavio Ocaña died after a police chase in Cautitlán Izcalli, México state.
Municipal police are responsible for the shooting death of a 22-year-old actor in México state on Friday, claim the man’s father and thousands of social media users.
According to the México state Attorney General’s Office (FGJ), Octavio Ocaña – best known for his role as Benito in the television series Vecinos (Neighbors) – accidentally shot himself after losing control of his SUV while being pursued by Cautitlán Izcalli municipal police in Atizapán de Zaragoza, a municipality located north of Mexico City.
Cautitlán Izcalli police had ordered Ocaña to stop but he accelerated instead, precipitating a high-speed chase that continued into Atizapán. According to the FGJ, Ocaña accidentally shot himself in the head as he crashed into a retaining wall.
“As a result of the dynamic of this accident the driver presumably set off the firearm he was carrying in his right hand,” it said in a statement, adding that he was shot at close range.
Ocaña was still alive when police reached his vehicle, in which two other men were traveling, but died after arriving at a hospital in the México state municipality of Naucalpan.
The two passengers allegedly told investigators that the actor removed his gun from the vehicle’s glove compartment when the chase began.
The FGJ said results of toxicology tests showed that Ocaña was driving under the influence of alcohol and marijuana. An empty tequila bottle and empty beer cans were found in the actor’s vehicle and the man traveling in the front passenger seat told investigators they had been drinking, according to the FGJ.
In an interview, Ocaña’s father said the gun found in his son’s car belonged to him but claimed that it wasn’t the weapon that shot him.
“The police killed Octavio Ocaña,” Octavio Pérez said, asserting that the bullet wound his son sustained was not consistent with the caliber of his firearm.
He said Ocaña had a Defense Ministry license for his gun and carried it due to the high levels of insecurity in Mexico. Pérez also challenged the FGE’s claim that his son was under the influence of marijuana.
“My son didn’t smoke marijuana, my son wasn’t an alcoholic that drank for two days straight because he had responsibility. I’m a businessman [in Tabasco] and he was in Mexico City taking care of my company there,” he told a YouTube program hosted by television presenter Gustavo Adolfo Infante.
Pérez said his son’s death had “destroyed” him but vowed to fight for the truth and until all those responsible are in prison.
Using photos and videos of the car chase and crash to back up their claims, thousands of social media users also blamed municipal police for Ocaña’s death.
Twitter and Facebook users said the weapon with which the actor allegedly shot himself could have been planted in the vehicle by police. They also shared images of a Cautitlán Izcalli police vehicle with a dent in its front to support a claim that it rammed into the back of Ocaña’s SUV, causing it to crash. Social media users also shared video footage that allegedly shows police beating the two other men who were in the vehicle.
In addition, a video posted to social media allegedly shows police offers in civilian clothing at the scene of the crash on Sunday.
“What do they want to erase?” one Twitter user asked.
Diego Enrique Osorno, a journalist, asserted that the FGE’s version of events “is one of the stupidest false reports in the recent history of official criminal cover-ups.”
“The setup is clear,” said Facebook user Cesar Portillo Arias in a post below the FGE’s statement. “Too bad that the Attorney General’s Office continues to lend itself to these kinds of violations of the rule of law.”
The canoe found by archaeologists working on the Maya Train in eastern Yucatán, near the ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá. INAH
Archaeologists working on the Maya Train railroad project discovered a pre-Hispanic canoe that is believed to be more than 1,000 years old, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced.
The Mayan wooden canoe was found in a cenote, or natural sinkhole, at the San Andrés archaeological site, located near the ancient Mayan city of Chichén Itzá in eastern Yucatán state.
Helena Barba Meinecke, head of the Yucatán office of the INAH Underwater Archaeology Department, said that she and other archaeologists were taking a break from diving when she noticed a dark mark on the cenote wall five meters below the surface of the water.
The mark was the opening to an underwater cave where the canoe was located. INAH said in a statement that it’s 1.6 meters long, 80 centimeters wide and 40 meters high.
“The small vessel could have been used to extract water from the cenote or to place offerings [in the cenote] during rituals,” it said.
Researchers at the cenote where the prehistoric canoe was found. INAH
Barba said it’s the first canoe of its kind to be found intact and so well preserved in the Mayan region. Fragments of pre-Hispanic Mayan canoes have previously been found in Quintana Roo, Guatemala and Belize, she said.
The archaeologist said the canoe was likely built in the Terminal Classic period, which corresponds to 830-950 AD. If that hypothesis is correct, the canoe is at least 1,070 years old.
The canoe will be subjected to a dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, analysis next month to determine its age and the type of wood it is made of. Experts from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France, will aid the analysis, INAH said.
A three-dimensional model of the canoe will be made to assist additional study and allow the construction of replicas that could be exhibited in museums, the institute said.
Other objects of archaeological value were found in and around two other bodies of water on the San Andrés site.
Archaeologists found a “human and ceramic skeleton,” a ritual knife, an incense burner, more than 40 broken pots and fragments of charcoal. They also discovered pre-Hispanic artwork, including a mural made with painted hands.
“It’s clear that this is an area where ceremonies took place,” Barba said. “Not just because of the intentionally broken ceramics but also because of the charcoal remains that indicate [the Mayan people’s] exposure to fire.”
Locals in this town founded in the 11th century manage to keep Día de Muertos celebrations intimate despite the presence of thousands of outsiders. File photo
Sitting at the edge of Mexico City’s border with México state, San Andrés Mixquíc was once a farming town, founded on one of the islands of Lake Chalco and surrounded by chinampa fields, where most of their crops were grown.
Today, this community has become a Day of the Dead holiday destination, and I’ve wanted to go since I heard about it years ago.
Each year, the city’s main cemetery is opened to the public and a display of burnt-orange Mexican marigolds, feathery-white flor de nube (baby’s breath) and thousands of lit candles decorate the tombs of the town’s departed in the main church, the Templo y Ex-Convento de San Andrés Apóstol de Míxquic.
Attending the festivities requires a real commitment.
You must be prepared to mix and mingle with a surge of humanity that even for longtime Mexico City dwellers like me can be intense. The scene is noisy: trick-or-treaters ringing handheld bells to call the souls of the dead back to earth; booming music flooding out from stands selling everything from cheap jewelry to grilled tacos; and the roar of crowds that fill Míxquic’s streets from midday on October 31 until the early morning hours of November 2.
The influx of people here for the holiday means business opportunities for some.
The most intense element of this pilgrimage is, by far, inserting yourself into the Mexico City traffic and joining the thousands of inhabitants that cross the city from one side to another daily. From central neighborhoods like Roma, Condesa and the historic center (where most tourists stay when they visit the capital), the trip takes, at a minimum, two hours, if you are lucky. Not to mention that when you approach the entrance to Míxquic, there reaches a moment when being in a car is no longer advantageous and it’s easier to just get out and walk. You then amble up the main road toward the cemetery, swept along with the crowd.
It’s best to get yourself a cup of ponche for the walk — a nonalcoholic version of mulled wine that takes the edge off the cold and makes the walk feel festive — then maybe a bag of sweet roasted almonds or sesame seeds from the stand announcing garrapiñadas calientes.
As you progress, the smell of roasted meat and sweet corn atole wafts from the street stands. The crowd urges you along, willing or not, until you are at the front steps of the church’s graveyard with its tombstones that sit cheek by jowl beside one another because, as one resident put it, “bodies just get piled atop one another over the generations” in the same small six-by-one-foot space.
The night to visit is November 2. If you go before, you will find all the same festivities, but the beauty of the graveyard isn’t revealed until that night, when local families come out in droves to decorate the gravestones of loved ones, light candles and commune with the dead.
“This year, unfortunately, my wife’s father died,” a local pan de muerto seller says, “and we are just waiting for him, you know? We put up his altar today on the table, and it’s as if he were here.”
While families commune with their dearly departed, tourists are welcomed to walk through the graveyard and get a peek at this centuries-old tradition. A walkway extends along one side of the cemetery’s wall and sits high enough that you can look down at the entire glowing landscape. It’s an overwhelming sight, the density of this cemetery making this nighttime celebration — called the alumbrada (illumination) — even more visually powerful.
Locals commune with the dead and socialize with loved ones from October 31 through November 2, but it’s that last night that attracts the most tourists.
People are looking forward to spending time with the souls of so many that were taken too soon by COVID-19. For many, it will be a first Day of the Dead without parents, siblings and grandparents. “We remember them every day,” says the bread seller, “but this day is completely dedicated to them. From the moment we wake up at home, we are making tamales; it’s a party.”
While meaningful and sacred, the fame of Míxquic and its subsequent flooding with visitors each year now means that this intimate local tradition is shared with multitudes. “It used to be much more traditional,” says another vendor selling vegetables and fruits outside the church’s walls. “It’s more vendors than anything else now. Truthfully, we have lost a lot of the tradition.”
But not all locals feel nostalgic for when Míxquic was just another anonymous country town. “For us, it’s a pleasure that [tourists] visit — for the business, for the economy of the town,” the pan de muerto seller says, “even more so now with the current situation. For us, it’s a plus.”
Breaking away from the crowd, along the side streets of the main thoroughfare, families set up altars in the garages and passageways that open onto the street. Most have a small basket out for visitors willing to toss in a few pesos for the pleasure of this glimpse at their private lives.
Altars are set up to honor loved ones with the four elements represented – earth, wind, fire and water — as well as a dish of salt for purification, a favorite food or a glass of tequila to nourish a spirit that has made the thirsty journey back to the living for this special night. As I walk, I see a guitar trio singing a slow ballad to the sepia-toned photo of a woman. In another home, the Lord’s Prayer is recited in front of a mountain of fruit and sugar skulls. A black-and-white photo of a couple perches at the top.
Handmade tissue paper lanterns in the shape of stars, boats and airplanes are delicately formed around light bulbs that serve as a beacon for the returning souls, some covered in plastic to keep off the rain that can dampen Day of the Dead festivities, which take place at the end of Mexico City’s rainy season. In the nearby town of Tecómitl, locals build small fires at the entrance to their homes that serve the same purpose.
An altar in a Míxquic family home open to public viewing.
The more mellow mood of Míxquic’s side streets is a taste of how many small towns in Mexico celebrate Day of the Dead: in the company of friends and family, with a ponche in one hand and a rosary in the other. As a visitor, I have always felt welcomed but never fully a part of the intimacy of celebrations. The sheer quantity of bodies in Míxquic can make moments of contemplation about the meaning of the season all the more difficult. Still, there is an understandable draw, especially for people who come from cultures where death is taboo and rekindling grief is something to be avoided.
If you can look beyond the crowds and mentally prepare yourself for the odyssey that is Mexico City traffic, Day of the Dead in Míxquic can be a festive glimpse at a tradition that most foreigners know little about. If you can’t, it’s better to stay at home and build your own small altar to honor someone you loved, cook their favorite meal and invite the people you love to share it with you.
Day of the Dead celebrations come in all forms. A visit to San Andrés Míxquic is just one of them.
Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
The victims were killed near the town of Tarecuato.
Eleven bullet-riddled bodies were found in Tangamandapio, Michoacán, on Monday night, state authorities said.
The Michoacán Attorney General’s Office (FGE) said the bodies hadn’t been identified and were taken to a government morgue in the neighboring municipality of Zamora.
The victims were killed on a rural road near the indigenous Purépecha community of Tarecuato, located about 180 kilometers west of Morelia near Michocán’s border with Jalisco. The newspaper Milenio reported that the multi-homicide occurred at approximately 10:30 p.m.
Authorities collected ballistic evidence at the scene of the crime, and seized a pickup truck and three motorcycles. The victims are men of varying ages and were apparently traveling in the truck and on the motorcycles, El Economista reported.
The FGE didn’t reveal any motive for the massacre and acknowledged there have been no arrests.
Several violent incidents have occurred in Tarecuato this year, including a Molotov cocktail attack on a community police station and the murder of a local official. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel and local criminal groups operate in the region and have previously clashed.
According to the crime monitoring website elcri.men, Tangamandapio had the 15th highest per capita homicide rate among Mexico’s almost 2,500 municipalities between October 2020 and September 2021. The adjoining municipalities of Jacona, Zamora and Tangancícuaro and nearby Cotija had the second, eighth, 11th and fourth highest rates, respectively.
The world’s 20 best Formula 1 (F1) drivers return to Mexico City on Sunday for the Mexican Grand Prix at the Hermanos Rodríguez Autodrome.
Expectations will be high for Guadalajara native Sergio “Checo” Pérez who is racing for one of the best teams, Red Bull. He has one win to his name in 2021, in Azerbaijan, and three third place finishes in France, Turkey and the United States, despite only being brought into the team to support star driver Max Verstappen.
He is in fourth place in the table, behind Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
The drivers will run 71 laps of the 4.3-kilometer circuit. Practice will begin on Friday at 11:30 a.m., and classification will start at 2 p.m. Saturday. The race will take place at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
All staff, spectators and journalists will be asked to provide a negative COVID-19 test taken 72 hours before the event, or to present a vaccine certificate. Face masks will also be mandatory.
The Mexican Grand Prix was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions, and the autodrome was used as a hospital during the most severe months of the pandemic. It was built in 1959 by president Adolfo López Mateos.
Vinícola Bajalupano in the Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California, was one of the grand gold medal winners.
Twenty-three Mexican wines won accolades at North America’s largest wine competition, held in October in Quebec, Canada.
Mexican winemakers won two grand gold medals, 20 gold medals and one silver at the Sélections Mondiales des Vins Canada, which bills itself as one of the most esteemed international wine competitions in the world.
The grand gold medal winners were the 2017 Bajalupano cabernet sauvignon made by Vinícola Bajalupano, a winery in the Valle de Guadalupe in Baja California, and the 2019 Puerta del Lobo merlot made by Querétaro’s Puerta del Lobo.
Those two wines were also among the 50 top-ranked wines at the event. Both achieved scores of 93 out of 100, placing them 13th in the rankings with 29 other wines.
Coahuila’s Vinícola San Lorenzo was the most successful Mexican winery, winning a total of seven gold medals.
The 20 gold medal-winning wines were:
The 2019 Huno cabernet sauvignon made by Coahuila’s Hacienda del Marques.
The 2017 Casa Madero Gran Reserva malbec made by Coahuila’s Vinícola San Lorenzo.
The 2017 Casa Madero Gran Reserva 3V (three varietals) made by Coahuila’s Vinícola San Lorenzo.
The 2016 Sierra Gorda Gran Reserva made by Querétaro’s Viñedos La Redonda.
The 2017 Rancho El Fortin Ensamblaje cabernet sauvignon/shiraz made by Coahuila’s Vinicola Rancho El Fortin.
The 2019 Casa Madero merlot made by Coahuila’s Vinícola San Lorenzo.
The 2017 Don Luis Concordia made by Baja California’s Vinícola L.A. Cetto.
The 2017 Casa Madero Gran Reserva shiraz made by Coahuila’s Vinícola San Lorenzo.
The 2019 Casa Madero malbec made by Coahuila’s Vinícola San Lorenzo.
The 2019 Casa Madero 3V made by Coahuila’s Vinícola San Lorenzo.
The 2019 Don Luis viognier made by Baja California’s Vinícola L.A. Cetto.
The 2018 Orlandi malbec/cabernet sauvignon made by Querétaro’s Viñedos La Redonda.
The 2020 Casa Madero V made by Coahuila’s Vinícola San Lorenzo.
The 2019 Vinaltura merlot made by Querétaro’s Vinaltura.
The 2017 Rancho El Fortin Selección cabernet sauvignon made by Coahuila’s Vinícola Rancho El Fortin.
The 2019 Huno merlot made by Coahuila’s Hacienda del Marques.
The 2020 Vinaltura gewürztraminer made by Querétaro’s Vinaltura.
The 2019 Puerta del Lobo Ensamble de Barricas made by Querétaro’s Puerta del Lobo.
The 2017 L.A. Cetto Reserva Privada nebbiolo made by Baja California’s Vinícola L.A. Cetto.
The 2017 L.A. Cetto Reserva Privada cabernet sauvignon made by Baja California’s Vinícola L.A. Cetto.
The sole silver medal winner was the 2017 Bajalupano cabernet sauvignon made by Baja California’s Vinícola Bajalupano.
Winemakers from 32 countries entered a total of 1,910 wines in this year’s 28th edition of the event, which was held at the Quebec Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management between October 7 and 10. A jury composed of 11 commissions of five people were responsible for judging the wines.
Jonathan Santlofer is the author of six books. His latest novel, The Last Mona Lisa, is an art detective story based on real events.
In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen in a brazen robbery from the Louvre in Paris, where the thief slipped in among museum workers as they arrived for their morning shifts and slipped out with the painting under his arm.
The artwork’s theft, and its eventual return to the museum two years later by an Italian art dealer, is credited with endowing upon Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece — only somewhat well-known at the time — the international fame it has today.
In 2021, author and artist Jonathan Santlofer took this historic incident and wove it into a speculative, suspenseful tale of what might have happened around this famous theft and the painting’s eventual return. Author Elinor Lipman will interview Santofler about his book, The Last Mona Lisa, live online for the San Miguel Literary Sala on November 7.
In their conversation, Lipman and Santlofer will discuss how the author recreated the world of early 20th-century Europe for his fast-paced art detective novel, which involves a professor who is the thief’s grandson, a rogue Interpol investigator, a Russian art thief and more. In Santlofer’s novel, the fictional Professor Perrone’s efforts to find out the truth about the theft cause him to stumble into the contemporary underworld of art forgery and obsession, putting his and other people’s lives in danger.
Santlofer is the author of six other novels, including the international bestseller The DeathArtist, and the Nero-award-winning Anatomy of Fear. His memoir, The Widower’s Notebook, appeared on over a dozen best books of 2018 lists and was featured in a segment on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross in the United States.
He is also an accomplished fine artist whose work has been shown in more than 200 exhibitions and included in major private and public collections.
Lipman is the award-winning author of 16 fiction and nonfiction books. Her first novel, Then She Found Me, was made into a feature film starring Helen Hunt, Bette Midler and Colin Firth. Her most recent book is the novel Rachel to the Rescue.
The interview will take place on Zoom from 6–7:30 p.m. CST. Tickets are on a pay what you wish scale ranging from US $5 to $50. To find out more information on this event, visit the San Miguel Literary website.
The National Guard shot at a vehicle transporting migrants near Pijijiapan, Chiapas, on Sunday, killing one and wounding four others. The security force confirmed its involvement in the incident on Monday.
Officers opened fire on the pickup truck carrying migrants when it tried to avoid an immigration checkpoint and ram a patrol vehicle, the Associated Press reported.
The National Guard said in a statement that the truck ignored orders to stop for an inspection and accelerated towards a patrol vehicle, which “put [the officers’ safety] at imminent risk.”
The state Attorney General’s Office said that the dead man was a Cuban citizen. It also said that authorities found a rifle in the truck.
The National Guard said the pickup was carrying 13 migrants, mostly from Cuba. The migrants and the driver were detained, while the wounded were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
It is not clear if the migrants had traveled with the 2,500-strong migrant caravan that left Tapachula, Chiapas, on October 23, which was located 48 kilometers south of the incident in Mapastepec, Chiapas, on Sunday, and arrived in Pijijiapan only on Tuesday afternoon.
Migrants heading north, generally to the U.S. border, often contract the services of migrant smugglers known as coyotes, a method that can be dangerous and expensive. However, it is not known if smugglers were involved in this case.
Chiapas is bearing the brunt of a migration crisis in Mexico. In Tapachula, a city of about 350,000 inhabitants, there are at least 63,000 stranded migrants waiting for refuge, according to figures from the federal refugee agency COMAR.
In 2019, at least 70,400 people sought refuge in Mexico; this year, more than 120,000 are expected, the newspaper El País reported. Seventy percent of the country’s asylum applications are made in Tapachula, which neighbors the Guatemalan border.
A member of the migrant caravan pushes two girls northward through Chiapas.
Cold weather, a punishing pace, illness and the constant threat of detention or violence by Mexican authorities are taking their toll on the caravan of 2,500 migrants as it continues its journey northward through Mexico that began in Tapachula, Chiapas, on October 23.
The migrants walked 15 kilometers to the municipality of Mapastepec Saturday evening and rested on Sunday. There were complaints of cold on both Friday and Saturday night, and many children were reported sick. The National Immigration Institute (INM) said that five children and one adult contracted dengue fever, the newspaper El Sol de México reported.
The convoy reached the roadside village of Hermenegildo Galeana on Monday night, 120 kilometers from Tapachula.
But exhaustion is making some question their decision to participate. At least one family decided to abandon the caravan and take its chances with coyotes, human smugglers, in order to reach Mexico City. That method is dangerous and expensive but will seem increasingly tempting to families and slower walkers with enough money, who are struggling to keep up with the pace and the long distances.
A migrant selling cigarettes on the road.
“We’re very tired. The physical drain has been enormous … more than the physical tiredness, it’s the psychological exhaustion due to migration,” one migrant said late on Monday, referring to the constant threat of detention by authorities. “As long as our bodies can handle it, the fight will continue.”
Despite the hardship, the caravan appears to be growing, as migrants weave their way past immigration controls from Tapachula to join the convoy, organizer Irineo Mújica said.
National Guard officers shot in the direction of a vehicle, killing the Cuban man and injuring four others, El Sol de México reported.
Before those details came to light, the INM stepped up its rhetoric against the caravan’s leaders, questioning their authority and accusing them of endangering the migrants. “It’s irresponsible that, due to the decisions of two people who call themselves leaders of the caravan, an agreement is not reached for authorities to provide foreigners with a regular immigration status, food and accommodation … to the detriment of their physical integrity,” it said in a press release on Sunday.
However, trust remains the stumbling block to reaching an agreement. Many migrants are fearful that once on an INM bus, they will be routed straight back to Tapachula, possibly to a prison-like detention center where many of them were held previously. That’s what happened to family members who were confronted by INM officials when they sought medical attention, El Sol de México reported.
Members of the caravan grab a ride on a big rig in order to advance closer to the front of the group.
Officials from a governmental organization that is observing the caravan said on condition of anonymity that the migrants’ mistrust of the INM was well-founded, and that promises to the contrary followed by a direct bus to Tapachula were an entirely plausible outcome of any deal.
The migrants are unlikely to receive another offer right away: Mexico is observing Day of the Dead through November 2, meaning holidays and reduced hours for many institutions.
Even before the Sunday shooting, the caravan was gaining political attention: Citizens’ Movement Deputy Salvador Caro Cabrera spoke in support of the migrants in Congress on October 28.
“The migrant caravan demands the attention of the federal government to achieve their proposal to gain asylum in our country. I could see from what hundreds of them told me that they haven’t had the treatment that the immigration law demands for them … We call on the federal government to resolve their migratory status before [the caravan arrives in Mexico City] to give freedom of transit to the [United States] border,” he said.
