TIJUANA — Mexico’s security forces evicted hundreds of migrants on Feb. 6, including many Haitians, from an informal camp in El Chaparral, Tijuana, and relocated them to nearby shelters, reported El San Diego Tribune.
“We initiated the relocation process for migrants in the Chaparral area,” said Monserrat Caballero, Tijuana’s mayor. “Their security and health were primary.”
At the time of eviction, 381 migrants lived at El Chaparral camp, including 59 families, 27 single mothers and 37 single adults, among others, according to an ABC News report published on abcnews.go.com. Last year, the number of people living at the camp reached 2,000.
A tweet by Alex Mensing, an activist present during the eviction process, showed what appeared to be a bus used to relocate the migrants and officers from Mexico’s army.
Haitians continued to be the biggest national group requesting refugee status in Mexico this year, with 2,410 applications out of 5,917 for all nationalities in January, according to data from the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, or (COMAR) in Spanish. An additional 299 and 241 applications from Brazil and Chile nationals, respectively, are believed to be children of Haitians who were born in the countries, according to COMAR’s director, Andrés Ramírez.