Thousands of asylum seekers in Mexico protest migrant abuse

In Mexico, thousands of asylum seekers are marching from the southern state of Chiapas to Mexico City protesting abuse and demanding immigration jails be shut down.  This comes nearly a month after the deadly fire at an immigrant jail at the U.S.-Mexico border.

One migrant from Honduras told reporters: “We’re protesting the 40 deaths in Ciudad Juárez, to demand the closure of the National Migration Institute, to demand President Obrador pays attention to us because ours is a good cause, to demand the removal of the migration’s director because these migrant centers are the concentration camps and bunkers of this century.”

The majority of victims in the fire were Indigenous people from Guatemala.

Last week, about two dozen makeshift tents at a migrant camp in Matamoros, across the border from Texas, were set ablaze.  Asylum seekers stuck in Mexico due to harsh U.S. immigration policies have long denounced human rights violations, including torture, at the hands of organized crime and Mexican authorities.