In Mexico’s Deep South, the United Nations Explains Handing Cash to U.S.-Bound Migrants
By Todd Bensman on January 20, 2022
Haitian complaining that he did not get UN payment
TAPACHULA, Mexico — The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), which receives billions in U.S. taxpayer money, is handing out cash debit cards and other funds for lodging and prescription medicines to U.S.-bound migrants who spill out into this southern Mexican city by the hundreds of thousands.
Every day, word of the UN’s cash assistance draws long lines of hopeful U.S.-bound migrants to a large, grey building staffed by application-takers and interviewers who determine who gets the money.
Haitian Luis Ponce was in line one recent day, not to get his application going, but to complain to the officials inside that the UN is in arrears. The international agency had not recharged his debit card-linked local bank account, a yellow and gray plastic affair with a UNHCR/ACNUR insignia in the upper third left corner, with the 3,600 pesos owed (about $180).
“We don’t have money now,” Ponce complained, flashing the empty card.
https://cis.org/Bensman/Mexicos-Deep-South-United-Nations-Explains-Handing-Cash-USBound-Migrants
