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African Migrants in Record Numbers Head for US via Latin America

Reuters

   TAPACHULA, MEXICO - Marilyne Tatang, 23, crossed nine borders in two
   months to reach Mexico from the West African nation of Cameroon,
   fleeing political violence after police torched her house, she said.

   She plans soon to take a bus north for four days and then cross a 10th
   border, into the United States. She is not alone, a record number of
   fellow Africans are flying to South America and then traversing
   thousands of miles of highway and a treacherous tropical rainforest to
   reach the United States.

   Tatang, who is eight months pregnant, took a raft across a river into
   Mexico on June 8, a day after Mexico struck a deal with U.S. President
   Donald Trump to do more to control the biggest flows of migrants
   heading north to the U.S. border in more than a decade.

   Trump threats encourage migrants

   The migrants vying for entry at the U.S. southern border are mainly
   Central Americans. But growing numbers from a handful of African
   countries are joining them, prompting calls from Trump and Mexico for
   other countries in Latin America to do their part to slow the overall
   flood of migrants.

   As more Africans learn from relatives and friends who have made the
   trip that crossing Latin America to the United States is tough but not
   impossible, more are making the journey, and in turn are helping others
   follow in their footsteps, migration experts say.

   Trump's threats to clamp down on migrants have ricocheted around the
   globe, paradoxically spurring some to exploit what they see as a
   narrowing window of opportunity, said Michelle Mittelstadt,
   communications director for the Migration Policy Institute, a
   Washington-based think tank.

   "This message is being heard not just in Central America, but in other
   parts of the world," she said.

   Record breaking numbers from Africa

   Data from Mexico's interior ministry suggests that migration from
   Africa this year will break records.

   The number of Africans registered by Mexican authorities tripled in the
   first four months of 2019 compared with the same period a year ago,
   reaching about 1,900 people, mostly from Cameroon and the Democratic
   Republic of the Congo (DRC), which remains deeply unstable years after
   the end of a bloody regional conflict with its neighbors that led to
   the deaths of millions of people.

   'They would have killed me'

   Tatang, a grade school teacher, said she left northwest Cameroon
   because of worsening violence in the English-speaking region, where
   separatists are battling the mostly French-speaking government for
   autonomy.

   "It was so bad that they burned the house where I was living ... they
   would have killed me," she said, referring to government forces who
   tried to capture her.

   At first, Tatang planned only to cross the border into Nigeria. Then
   she heard that some people had made it to the United States.

   "Someone would say, 'You can do this,'" she said. "So I asked if it was
   possible for someone like me too, because I'm pregnant. They said, 'Do
   this, do that.'"

   Tatang begged her family for money for the journey, which she said so
   far has cost $5,000.

   Epic journey

   She said her route began with a flight to Ecuador, where Cameroonians
   don't need visas. Tatang went by bus and on foot through Colombia,
   Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala until reaching
   Mexico.

   She was still deciding what to do once she got to Mexico's northern
   border city of Tijuana, she said, cradling her belly while seated on a
   concrete bench outside migration offices in the southern Mexican city
   of Tapachula.

   "I will just ask," she said. "I can't say, 'When I get there, I will do
   this.' I don't know. I've never been there."

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