Long lines of migrants, mostly Central Americans, line up daily outside the Tapachula offices of the refugee agencies of Mexico and the United Nations.
Meanwhile, a polyglot throng including people from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean regularly gathers at the local headquarters of the National Institute of Immigration, Mexico's agency for migrant affairs.
Almost all those seeking help have a common destination - the United States - but they find themselves caught in an expanding Mexican immigration crackdown prompted by U.S. pressure and marooned in this sweltering city in southern Mexico.
In recent weeks, Mexican authorities have set up immigration checkpoints along the main northbound highway and have been aggressively detaining and deporting thousands of migrants.
The law enforcement squeeze seems destined to tighten with Mexico's vow to deploy some 6,000 National Guard forces to its southern border as part of a deal reached last week with the Trump administration to avert U.S. tariffs.
The Mexican strategy is a familiar one: Position checkpoints on the limited number of roads radiating north from the notoriously porous Guatemalan border, which stretches for some 600 miles along jungle, mountain and river terrain. The idea is to bottle up and detain migrants in the south. Mexico also appears to have stepped up enforcement against northbound freight trains, another popular mode of migrant travel.
In March, the Mexican interior minister, Olga Sanchez Cordero, said Mexico planned to create an enforcement containment belt along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico's narrowest point, about 125 miles across from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, to keep the migrant flow from advancing north.
The current scenario in the southern state of Chiapas is far removed from the atmosphere of months past, when tens of thousands of Central Americans - both in organized caravans and in small groups - moved freely through the corridor. Many were quickly granted humanitarian visas as part of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's vow to assist migrants. The welcome mat has now been yanked.
Mexican officials reported deporting more than 30,000 foreigners during April and May, almost 70% more than during the same period a year earlier. Police also broke up the two most recent northbound migrant caravans, arresting hundreds.
Migrants who make it to Tapachula, some 20 miles north of the Guatemalan border, say they have little choice but to remain and apply for immigration paperwork - visas, temporary visitor permits, refugee status or departure documents that give recipients 30 days to get out of Mexico. But it has become a tortuous waiting game.
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