By Agencies
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About 100 migrants from various countries wandered directionless and disoriented through the streets of the troubled Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
After walking for a couple weeks through southern Mexico with hundreds of other migrants, they accepted an offer from immigration officials to come to Acapulco with the idea they could continue their journey north toward the U.S. border.
Instead, they found themselves stuck on Monday.
Just less than two weeks ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Mexico continues dissolving attention-grabbing migrant caravans and dispersing migrants throughout the country to keep them far from the U.S. border, while simultaneously limiting how many accumulate in any one place.
The policy of “dispersion and exhaustion” has become the center of the Mexican government’s immigration policy in recent years and last year succeeded in significantly reducing the number of migrants reaching the U.S. border, said Tonatiuh Guillén, former chief of Mexico’s immigration agency.
Mexico’s current administration hopes that the lower numbers will give them some defense from Trump’s pressures, said Guillen, who left the administration of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador after Trump threatened to impose tariffs over migration during his first presidency.
Acapulco would seem to be a strange destination for migrants.
Once a crown jewel of Mexico’s tourism industry, the city now suffers under the thumb of organized crime and is still struggling to climb back after taking a direct hit from devastating Hurricane Otis in 2023.
On Monday, Mexican tourists enjoyed the final hours of their holiday beach vacations while migrants slept in the street or tried to find ways to resume their journeys north.
“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. They won’t sell us (bus) tickets. They won’t sell us anything.”
Castañeda, like thousands of other migrants, had left the southern city of Tapachula near the Guatemalan border.
More than a half dozen caravans of about 1,500 migrants each have set out from Tapachula in recent weeks, but none of them made it very far.
Authorities let them walk for days until they’re exhausted and then offer to bus them to various cities where they say their immigration status will be reviewed, which could mean any number of things.
Some migrants have discovered the permits authorities give them allow them to travel only within the state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located.
Other migrants have better luck.
VENEZUELA
Self-exiled Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González, who claims to have defeated President Nicolás Maduro in last year’s presidential election, said his son-in-law was kidnapped Tuesday in Venezuela’s capital.
González, who was traveling in the United States, said Rafael Tudares was kidnapped while on his way to drop off González’s two grandchildren at school in Caracas.
In a post on X, González said “hooded men, dressed in black” intercepted the vehicle and loaded Tudares “into a gold-colored van.”
He did not say what happened to his 6- and 7-year-old grandchildren.
The kidnapping happened despite a significant increase in police and military presence since New Year’s Day across Caracas ahead of Friday’s swearing-in ceremony for Maduro, who the government says won a third term in the July election.
The government’s centralized press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
González, a retired diplomat, represented Venezuela’s Unitary Platform opposition coalition in the presidential election, which he and Maduro both claim to have won.
The platform in a statement characterized Tudares’ kidnapping as a “forced disappearance for political reasons.”
“We demand the immediate release of Rafael Tudares and all political prisoners, who are hostages of a regime that knows it is rejected by the vast majority of Venezuelans who spoke with the force of the vote (on July 28),” the coalition said in the statement.
González left Venezuela for exile in Spain in September after a judge issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with an election-related investigation.
In recent weeks, he has vowed to return to his homeland to take the oath of office.
González, 75, is touring the Americas to try to rally support for his effort to get Maduro out of office before Friday.
That’s when, by law, the South American country’s next presidential term begins.
This week, González met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House as well as with U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s designated to be his national security adviser once he is sworn in on Jan. 20.
González, who has been recognized by several governments including the U.S. as Venezuela’s president-elect, has not explained how he plans to return to the troubled country or wrest power from Maduro, whose ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela controls all aspects of government.
González had never run for office before July. The Unitary Platform coalition selected him in April as a last-minute stand-in for opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado, who was blocked by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Tribunal of Justice from running for any office.
Machado last week urged supporters to demonstrate across Venezuela on Thursday, telling them in a video message that Maduro will not step down on his own and they “must make him leave.”
Meanwhile, Maduro has asked his supporters to demonstrate Friday.
But it is unclear whether anyone will heed calls to head to the streets with the increased security presence.
On Tuesday, despite being the first day of school after the holidays, children were nowhere to be seen during morning rush hour in Caracas, and some schools remained closed.
“There is tension. As soon as night falls, the city is like a ghost town,” Caracas resident Mari Jimenez said. “We do not feel confident seeing so many police.”
Kidnappings were commonplace in Venezuela at the end of last and beginning of this century, when criminals targeted the wealthy and a thriving middle class. But that type of crime decreased in recent years, as the country’s economy came undone and Venezuelans began to emigrate.
Recently, people have associated kidnappings with the government practice of detaining its real or perceived opponents without following the law. They are seen as part of a campaign to repress anti-government protests that broke out after the election results were announced.
