After the , Tapachula, on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, today hosts thousands of stranded migrants and asylum seekers in increasingly precarious conditions, with no possibility of moving north and desperate due to the complex bureaucratic procedures to regularize their situation.
From city of transit to city of waiting
The , added to bilateral agreements and regional pressures, have transformed Mexico into a country of containment. Tapachula, which traditionally functioned primarily as a transit point, has become a city of forced permanence since, in January 2025, the Trump Administration sealed the border and suspended the main programs to request asylum and refuge in the United States.
Here migrants face long bureaucratic processes to obtain documents that allow them to move legally through Mexico. Meanwhile, they cannot formally work or access basic services, such as shelter or medical care. “The lack of infrastructure, employment and services in Tapachula aggravates the situation. The city is not prepared to receive thousands of people on a prolonged basis, which generates overcrowding, informality and extreme vulnerability,” says the coordinator in southern Mexico, Lucía Samayoa.
The caravans: collective response to desperation
As a result, migrant caravans have formed after more than half a year without these mass movements: one was formed on August 8 and two others on October 1 and 17. The caravans covered hundreds of kilometers over several days, although they did not meet their goal of reaching Mexico City. This form of collective mobility reemerges as a strategy of visibility and pressure in the face of the impossibility of advancing through regular routes. Walking together allows migrants to support each other and reduce the risks of traveling alone such as abuse, extortion and violence.
“In Tapachula, employment opportunities are scarce and almost any job requires a residence permit, documents that I have not yet been able to process due to the delay in the processes,” explains Ricardo Nilo, a 31-year-old Cuban assisted by MSF as the caravan passes through the town of Escuaintla in Chiapas, 73 kilometers from Tapachula. Grisel Hernández, 25, also Cuban, adds: “There is no way to regularize my situation. There is no employment, and the only work they offer to women is in bars, something that does not allow me to support my son with dignity.”
“In Tapachula, employment opportunities are scarce and almost any job requires a residence permit”
Migrants also denounce the irregular sale of tickets and suffer discrimination in the terminals. “When I tried to buy a bus ticket, they denied it or sold it at abusive prices. Since there were other people in the same situation, we decided to organize and support each other,” says Honduran Melissa Ruiz, 25 years old.
Panoramic view of the city of Tapachula, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
A large but invisible population
It is difficult to estimate how much of the migrant population remains stranded in Tapachula. The capital of the state of Chiapas has been a focus of asylum requests within Mexico in recent years. In 2025, according to data from September 2020, more than 52,000 asylum applications were registered in Mexico; two out of three were presented in the state of Chiapas, with Tapachula being the main reception point.
According to its report from April to July 2025 and MSF’s observation; Haitians, Cubans and Hondurans are the most visible nationalities, although Tapachula is home to people from many other countries. When this was a place of passage, many people sought refuge in shelters often managed by Christian entities. Today, these centers, whose services have been impacted by humanitarian aid cuts, have low occupancy (on average, 30% of their capacity). Many migrants, who in some cases have been in the city for months, choose to rent rooms in peripheral neighborhoods with little access to basic services and with the presence of criminal organizations.
This dispersion, also a consequence of stigmatization and fear of being detained or deported, makes a large part of the migrant community more invisible today and makes it more difficult for humanitarian organizations to access it.
Medical care: between adaptation and resistance
Due to the cut in global aid funds catalyzed by the suspension of the USAID agency and replicated by large donors, many humanitarian organizations have reduced activities or closed programs in Tapachula in 2025 in areas such as protection, asylum or refuge applications, care for victims of violence, including sexual violence, and child care.
MSF has also closed projects in other parts of Mexico due to the decrease in the migratory flow. However, in Tapachula the organization has not only maintained an active presence, but also tries to reach, through mobile clinics, more remote areas where some of the migrants who have been stranded now congregate.
Between January and September 2025, MSF teams attended 11,483 medical and 2,390 mental health consultations, 128% and 53% more respectively than in the same period of the previous year. This growth reflects the deterioration of living conditions, the increase in violence and the lack of medical care.
MSF provides primary medical care to migrants living on the streets, in improvised shelters or in informal settlements. The main reasons for consultation range from respiratory infections, gastrointestinal diseases, physical injuries, untreated chronic diseases to cases of physical or sexual violence. Many patients arrive after weeks without medical attention, with advanced symptoms or avoidable complications. MSF teams also carry out health promotion activities, distribute essential goods and refer serious cases to public hospitals.
An MSF community worker in Suchiate explains the services the organization provides to migrants who have just crossed the border from Guatemala.
Mental health, an emergency
The psychological impact of migration is profound and often invisible. People face grief, family breakups, violence, discrimination and feelings of uncertainty. Prolonged waiting, lack of options, and hostile treatment aggravate symptoms.
Public mental health services do not have sufficient capacity. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends between 5 and 10 psychiatrists per 100,000 inhabitants. However, in Tapachula there is only one psychiatrist from the Ministry of Health for the entire population, that is, more than 17 times below that recommendation, and the wait to receive an appointment can exceed three months.
“We see patients who have lost family members along the way, who have been victims of sexual abuse or who live in constant fear. Many arrive with insomnia, panic attacks and a deep feeling of hopelessness,” says Olga Lucía Uzcátegui, MSF mental health manager.
The reactivation of the caravans, the continuity of violence and the lack of effective migration solutions demand a coordinated, sustained response focused on human dignity. “Tapachula is a waiting room with no exit. Making visible the stories of the people who have been left in this limbo is essential. Responses are urgently commensurate with the human suffering experienced on the southern border,” concludes Lucía Samayoa.
