Pressure mounts at U.S.-Mexican border with more African migrants awaiting

Mexico's National Immigration Institute (INM) reported an alarmingly growing number of Africans migrating to the United States via Mexico, through legal immigration or human trafficking.

Migrants rest near a Mexican immigration center where people have set up a camp to sleep in Matamoros, Mexico, Thursday, August 1, 2019, on the border with Brownsville, Texas. [File Photo: AP via IC/Emilio Espejel]

In the first half of 2019, the number of African migrants heading north was higher than the 2018 total, with a sudden surge starting April.

Some 3,712 African migrants were brought before immigration authorities between January and June, a 25.5-percent increase year-on-year.

INM statistics show the flow of African migrants across Mexico's southern border with Central America doubled in the second quarter, with a whopping 75 percent coming from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Two factors are at play in the dramatic rise of African migrants, Alejandro Encinas, deputy minister of immigration and human rights of Mexico's Interior Ministry told Xinhua recently.

The first is that they touched down from Brazil through legal migration processes, from where they depart in search of better opportunities following the South American country's economic plights.

The second factor is that international human trafficking rings are facilitating their migration north via Mexico.

Echoing Encinas' analysis, Raul Benitez Manaut, professor with the Center for Research on North America at Mexico's National Autonomous University said the rise in African migrants indicated that the international trafficking network has expanded its reach to Mexican ports of entry.

"It's not free for a Nigerian, a Congolese or an Angolan to arrive here ... It's impossible to get from Africa to Mexico without a good criminal network that knows and has contacts all along the route," said Benitez.

The presence of African migrants is turning out a greater challenge for Mexican immigration officials due to cultural and religious differences, mainly language, diet and customs.

Like their Central American counterparts, the African migrants are finding it tough to seek asylum in the United States.

On June 7, the Mexican and U.S. governments reached an agreement in a bid to drastically reduce the influx of undocumented Central American migrants.

In early July, about 200 African migrants, mainly Cameroonians, protested outside a border-crossing point between the U.S. city of San Diego, in California, and the north Mexican town of Tijuana, to demand speedier acception of entry applications.

With the U.S. unlikely to be very responsive, many of the African migrants may opt to remain in Mexico, said Benitez.