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IOM: MPP “an inhumane program that goes against international law”

-The International Organization for Migration (IOM) assured that after three years of seeing the development of the program, despite collaborating in it, they are against it.

By: Marinee Zavala and Telemundo20

TIJUANA.- The MPP program has been three years since its inauguration by the United States government on January 30, 2019 and with it, the disappointment and the return to Mexico of hundreds of migrants who hoped to have an opportunity to live their asylum from US soil.

Migrants in Tijuana who can access the program like Zulma say they can no longer wait.

“The wait has been very complicated, because I have been here for nine months at the ÁGAPE shelter and it has not been easy at all,” said Zulma Tovar, a migrant from Honduras, who joined the MPP program.

Between improvised grills and a house shared with hundreds of migrants, he says he has not been able to build a home in Mexico

“Here in Tijuana, no, I can’t, because one because of insecurity and another because they don’t give us foreigners work,” added Zulma Tovar.

In Tijuana, camps like El Chaparral continue to see the arrival of more migrants around them, and within the shelters spaces are even made for more tents, say migrants who are not registered in the MPP, which does not offer them any legal option. to go to the United States.

“There are people like in my case that I can no longer return to, I have to be practically hidden because of the dangers and without the opportunity to go through to explain my case and tell them look at this, I need my help, but through MPP you cannot ”, said Edgardo Aguirre, a migrant from El Salvador who preferred to change his name for fear of being identified by gangs operating from the northern border of Mexico.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) assured that after three years of seeing the development of the program, despite collaborating in it, they are against it.

“It is a program that the international organization for migration does not like, it is an inhumane program that goes against international law,” explained Alberto Cabezas, Communications Coordinator at IOM Mexico.

Well, in the midst of the pandemic, hundreds have had to be supported to return to Mexico and ensure that they are not victims of COVID-19 either.

“They are border cities, where there are already other populations of migrants or displaced people and there is great pressure on limited resources in times of pandemic,” added Alberto Cabezas.

What the activists say from the shelters has only caused more people to become frustrated and think about jumping the fences into the United States illegally.

“There is great confusion here among the immigrants, others are disappointed because they say wait, some lasted 18 months here in the shelter to be able to enter as MPP to fight their case there, I do not want to wait that long and others listen if you jump if they are applying as MPP, because I have no choice but to jump,” said Alberto Rivera, director of the AGAPE shelter in Tijuana

Well, since last December 6 until today, only 96 migrants have been returned across the border from San Diego to Tijuana and while the program continues to work, those who are not considered as Marbella, of Mexican origin, say he feels that both governments abandoned him.

“That they have abandoned us that these cases are already lost is what I feel,” said Marbella Parral, a migrant of Mexican origin

And today, waiting from a shelter with her two children, she assures, the only option that the MPP has left her has been to return to her state in Oaxaca.

“I haven’t been here for eight months and I don’t see results, I don’t see, I see everything stopped because as it was since I arrived, as it was I don’t see progress at all,” added Marbella Parral.

While the MPP program has already completed three years at the border, the migrants told TELEMUNDO20 that they feel the same confusion as the first day.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) a total of 380 migrants have been returned from the United States to Mexico to continue their asylum process since last December 6, however, the United States government assured that they wait that these be finished or have a definitive answer in a maximum period of six months.

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