The radical activist who led the latest mass migrant caravan from Mexico to the US was sentenced to 40 years in prison and has brought tens of thousands of asylum seekers to the border.
Luis Garcia Villagran, a self-proclaimed Evangelical Christian from Mexico, was at the forefront of mass migration again this week, leading some 8,000 migrants on a Christmas Eve march through Mexico to the already-crisis US border – and predicts the number of asylum seekers could easily nearly double to 15,000 down the road.
“We’re trying to help the underserved, especially women and child immigrants,” the media-savvy frontman told The Daily Caller in a July 2022 interview. “Quite simply, we’re using what’s in the law.”
Villagran, who heads the Center for Human Dignity, boasted at the time that he had guided 40,000 migrants to the border since September 2021 — a number that has doubled since then and is expected to increase even more in the coming weeks and months.
The organizer told the outlet that he was not funded or helped by outside organizations — and was motivated by his faith and belief in the right of immigrants to get out of their impoverished origins.
Migrant activist Luis Garcia Villagran was imprisoned for 12 years by the Mexican government. Angel Chevrestt
Villagran was previously arrested in the Mexican state of Chiapas in 1997 on charges of kidnapping and conspiracy, allegations he denies. He was convicted by a judge and sentenced to 40 years in prison, but working with several human rights groups, he appealed his case and was finally released in 2010.
The activist, who runs his group with his wife, Martha Martinez de la Fuente, said he was tortured while in custody – and that previous struggles also fueled his mission.
The activist said he was “stigmatized as dangerous, and they took me to a maximum security prison until [Inter-American Commission on Human Rights] demand my freedom.”
Villagran suffered a detached retina while in solitary confinement and argued that the condition was left untreated, resulting in the loss of vision in one eye.
Villagran has brought tens of thousands of migrants to the US southern border. AFP via Getty Images
“The damage was repaired, and that’s where the Center for Human Dignity was born,” he said.
A 2021 profile in the Mexico Daily described Villagran and fellow organizer Irineo Mujica as media-savvy tacticians trying to manage the perception of the migrant movement in addition to the thousands of people in charge.
“García is more priest than protester: brooding, eloquent, level-headed,” the outlet wrote. “Both understand the power of public opinion, and have a flair for politics and an eye for the camera.”
Villagran led 8,000 migrants from Mexico to the US border. Reuters
As for his caravan this Christmas season, “Today we are the poorest of the poorest among those who are at the peak of need, those who do not have money to pay for visas or polleros,” said Villagrán, referring to human traffickers. .
Villagran has been vocal in criticizing America’s immigration policy in the past, calling it “dominating” and driven by a desire to “coerce”.
There are about 2 million immigrant encounters at the US southern border in fiscal years 2022 and 2023.
Villagran said the caravan could swell to 15,000 people. Reuters
Nearly a quarter of a million migrants crossed the perimeter in November alone — a new high for the month and the third-highest total in history.
“We will not be stopped, we will keep going,” Villagran vowed over the weekend, according to a Reuters report.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
