Right now at our nation's border a group of migrants from Africa and Haiti are violently protesting because immigration officials won't allow them to enter the US.
A video from VOA news (below) displays military police officers clashing with migrants from Africa, Haiti and other countries during a protest in front of an immigration center in Tapachula, Mexico, as they demand free transit through the country to reach the United States, on Tuesday, August 27.
Over a hundred asylum-seekers from Cameroon blocked the path of Mexican immigration vans Tuesday morning in Tijuana, in protest of what they believe to be corruption by Mexican immigration officials.
The complaints of the Cameroonians stem from the Mexican authorities refusal to accept migrants from Africa for transport to the U.S. side of the border, where they can officially declare asylum. The Africans claim that days have gone by without Mexican officials calling any numbers from an unofficial “waiting list,” and yet Central American asylum seekers have been granted entry to the U.S. on those days.
“It’s corruption plain and simple,” said an asylum-seeker named Beatriz, who asked that her last name not be published. She said Central Americans have been paying bribes to the immigration officers. Beatriz has been waiting two months to cross into the United States and saw her number recently skipped over. “I can’t wait another two months.”
Asylum-seekers from Cameroon are, for the most part, members of the English-speaking minority in the country, and they have faced intense persecution since 2016. Many have traveled through South America, the jungles of Panama and Central America, only to run out of time and money south of the U.S. border.