Migrant caravan leaves southern Mexican city but many are no longer aiming for the US border

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TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — Hundreds of migrants, most of them from Haiti, left the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on foot Tuesday seeking better living conditions elsewhere in Mexico.

Migrant caravans like the one that left Tapachula used to aim for the U.S. border. But many of the migrants leaving Tapachula on Tuesday said they had lost hope of making it to the U.S. due to the restrictions that the Trump administration has placed on asylum seekers.

Instead, the migrants said they wanted to settle down in large Mexican cities, where they may be able to find work and file asylum claims. Some of the migrants said that they had been unable to get responses for asylum claims in Tapachula, despite spending months in the small city near Mexico's border with Guatemala.

“The United States is no longer an option for us” said Jerry Gabriel, a 29-year-old Haitian migrant. “We only want to make it to Mexico City, Monterrey, Tijuana or another place where we might be able to live.”

In March another group of several hundred migrants left from Tapachula on foot. But the caravan was dissolved after 12 days on the march, after the migrants made a deal with Mexican immigration officers.

During the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who came into office in October 2024, there have been 18 migrant caravans leaving from Tapachula. None of them has made it past the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Haitians account for a quarter of asylum petitions filed in Mexico. According to Mexico’s national agency for refugees, 127,000 Haitians filed asylum petitions in Mexico between 2020 and 2024.