Venezuelans big presence in caravan after visa requirement

HUIXTLA, Mexico (AP) — After walking for two days along rural highways in southern Mexico along with several thousand other migrants, Venezuelan Wilber Pires spent what was supposed to be a day of rest for the caravan asking for help to buy medicine for his daughter.

Two-year-old Valesca Pires was hospitalized in Huixtla overnight with a high fever. Other children in the extended family of 18 were sick as well and covered with mosquito bites. Under the roof of a covered court where migrants slept side-by-side on sheets spread over concrete, adults tended to battered feet after walking some 25 miles since departing Tapachula Monday.

“If it’s hard for an adult imagine it for her,” Pires said of his daughter.

Venezuelans make up a large proportion of this caravan, the biggest of the year, in contrast to previous ones. A factor appears to be a policy change implemented by Mexico in January requiring Venezuelans to acquire a visa to enter the country.

Before that change, Venezuelans had flown to Mexico City or Cancun as tourists and then made their way comfortably to the border. Many made it from home to the U.S. border in as little as four days.

Encounters with Venezuelans at the southwest border plunged from 22,779 in January to 3,073 in February, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In April, the most recent month available, there were 4,103 encounters.

But the flow of Venezuelan migrants has continued. Since January, more than half of the 34,000 migrants who crossed the treacherous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama were Venezuelans, according to Panama’s National Migration Service.

The visa requirement drove the flow of Venezuelans into the shadows. Those traveling in the caravan are just the visible sign of who is traveling through Mexico out of...