Comar employees promise to “speed up procedures” in exchange for breaking the law and charging up to $1,500.
14ymedio, Ángel Salinas/Yaiza Santos, México/Madrid, 1 August 2025 — “Don’t be fooled! The procedures are free.” Advertisements like this are repeated in every Mexican public office where there is no fee to complete the process. Among them are those of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) and the National Migration Institute. However, in the Chiapas border city of Tapachula, according to several firsthand accounts from 14ymedio, officials at these institutions “sell everything.”
Those are the exact words of Niorbis, a native of Matanzas who has experienced it firsthand. Cubans, Colombians, and Venezuelans, he says, have paid up to $1,500 to expedite “appointments, application forms, and even recorded interviews,” but their processes ultimately are not any faster. Many of them still don’t obtain refugee documents.
Figueredo claims he tried to avoid “extortion” and went to the immigration office in mid-June. “I stood there every day for a week to get an appointment,” the 28-year-old migrant laments. “They keep you there, in line, and at the end, they ask you to wait for mail from Comar. It never arrives; it’s all corruption.”
“If you don’t pay a lawyer, they won’t give you anything, but if you pay 50,000 pesos, they promise you’ll stay in the country.”
Finally, the Cuban had to go to a lawyer named Ezequiel, who charged him almost 4,000 Mexican pesos [US$200] to expedite the process. “In three days, he resolved the eight signatures required by Comar, and now I’m waiting for a date for the final interview.”
Another migrant, Viviana, claims that “Comar is a brothel.” This Colombian woman was denied a humanitarian visa and alleges that officials have set prices for the procedures, “ranging from 15,000 to 25,000 pesos [just over $1,304].” She says that “if you don’t pay a lawyer, they don’t give you anything. But if you pay 50,000 pesos [$2,650], you are promised permission to remain in the country.”
After three rejections, with the advice of a lawyer Cuban Alexander Barrera and three of his relatives paid 36,000 pesos [almost $2,000] to begin the process of requesting asylum.
The fact that migrants end up having to hire lawyers to undertake the process is part of the corruption. That’s the opinion, at least, of Damián, a Cuban from Holguín, who was stranded with his family in Tapachula, waiting for a refugee claim that arrived four months later than expected. He understood very well that he shouldn’t give in to extortion, but his friends
didn’t have the same attitude and paid more than $1,000 to have their cases resolved.
“Comar denies your case to force you to find a lawyer; in fact, they even suggest which one.”
“That’s where the lawyers come in,” he told 14ymedio. “Comar denies your case to force you to find a lawyer; in fact, they even suggest which one. That lawyer will handle the case for you for 20,000 or 25,000 Mexican pesos [between $1,000 and $1,300], and of course, they then resolve it, and always, always, without any kind of contract.”
The story of those who suffer these hardships is similar. Comar begins to delay emails—up to three months, the first of which the migrants must receive to continue the process from the moment they begin it—and those affected begin to file complaints. It is then that the government agency suggests something like this: “I advise you to also find a lawyer, if you are unable to do it yourself, and they will help, because we are overwhelmed.”
The prevailing opinion among migrants is: “Without lawyers, you won’t make it.” Damián says: “It’s a magic wheel they have among themselves.” In reality, he explains, the lawyers don’t carry out any procedure that one couldn’t do themselves before the Comar (National Commission of Migration). He concludes: “Regardless of whether the offices are overwhelmed or not, they are violating the law.”
Indeed, bribery—the crime “committed by a public servant who requests or accepts money or any other gift in exchange for performing or omitting an act related to his or her duties, whether for his or her own benefit or that of a third party”—is classified in the Mexican Federal Penal Code and even carries prison sentences.
“Regardless of whether the offices are overwhelmed or not, they are violating the law.”
Luis Rey García Villagrán, who is organizing a caravan departure on August 4, accused the regional coordinator of Comar, Carmen Yadira de los Santos Robledo, of “deliberately prolonging” the migrants’ paperwork. “They’re trying to tire people out. The message is clear: ’Either you pay or you don’t move forward’.”
The activist recalled that De los Santos “has a dark history as a representative of the INM in Tapachula (from 2019 to 2022) and in Yucatán (2023), and has returned to continue her acts of corruption at the Comar.”
He also pointed out the collusion between authorities and Farah Cerdio, the head of the Comar (National Commission for the Defense of Human Rights) in Tapachula. Despite the constant complaints and evidence that migrants and human rights groups have presented to the authorities, he laments, there have been no legal consequences, not even dismissals.
This Thursday, Comar employees filed a complaint against De los Santos for a series of unjustified dismissals, nepotism, labor exploitation, and non-payment. The aggrieved parties claim that the official placed relatives and acquaintances in the positions of those forced to leave their jobs. Those still working, meanwhile, said they have gone fifteen days without receiving their salaries.
“There are more than 3,000 people working in the 4,500 bars and cantinas in appalling conditions, and no one is doing anything.”
According to Villagrán, migrants stranded in Tapachula have fallen prey to labor and sexual exploitation. “There are more than 3,000 people working in the 4,500 bars and cantinas in appalling conditions, and no one does anything.”
On this topic, last Wednesday, he confronted the officials who were present at the Information Fair for World Day Against Human Trafficking, held in the auditorium of Miguel Hidalgo Central Park: “They come to take photos, selfies, while girls are exploited in prostitution, and members of the LGBT community are exploited. These events, with all due respect, are a simulation, a pretense.”
Tapachula has become a second home for 13,779 Cubans. However, 5,959 of these people remain without having regularized their immigration status. In the state of Chiapas, bordering Guatemala, 1,533 Cubans have a Temporary Resident Card, which guarantees them legal residence in the country for a limited period and its subsequent renewal. Another 3,915 people from the Island already have permanent residency.
The Migration Policy, Registration, and Identity Unit has also issued 2,228 Humanitarian Cards to Cubans in vulnerable or at-risk situations, giving them temporary access to services and legal protection.
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