TAPACHULA AN OPEN-AIR PRISON
-BLOOMBERG- Commission September 2024
-MEDIAPART- Commission June 2023
In collaboration with the journalist Caterina MORBIATO
Gateway to Mexico and North America, Tapachula is an almost obligatory stop for thousands of migrants traveling from South and Central America. The city, with its 200,000 inhabitants, has nearly turned into a giant open-air refuge in recent months, successively hosting migratory waves heading north. A portrait of Tapachula, sometimes nicknamed the little Babylon of Chiapas.
Encounters with Cuban, Venezuelan, Haitian, Ecuadorian, and other migrants, who have just arrived or have been in Tapachula for several months. They seek refuge, sleep on the streets, work, live, or rather survive in this city overwhelmed by the weight of migration.
The number of asylum applications received by Mexican migration services has exploded in the past year. The administration is overwhelmed, and the shelters are full. Migration has even become a business for property owners who rent out housing at exorbitant prices.
The condition of migrants in Mexico is continually worsened by migration policies. Mexico acts as a buffer for the United States. NGOs denounce human rights violations and increasingly frequent violence.
In the midst of this crisis, the people of Tapachula also live. The city has always been a place of migration reception, giving it a profoundly multicultural character.
