LGBTQ migrants face 'triple vulnerability' as a group in Mexico aims to help them

Mexico has become one of the largest migratory corridors in the world, and the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration (ORAM) is spearheading a campaign in Mexico to raise money to specifically help LGBTQ migrants, who face added discrimination.

Dayling Ramírez says that each day that passes is a challenge to overcome because, despite having survived the persecution of the Mara Salvatrucha gang and the abuses in an immigration station in Mexico, Ramírez hasn't yet fully integrated into the country’s society.

“We trans people have a hard time getting hired. It’s horrible. Here you survive if you are a stylist or if you are a prostitute, otherwise not. They don’t give you work,” said Ramírez, 36, a Honduran trans woman who lives in Mexico City.

Mexico has become one of the largest migratory corridors in the world. In fiscal year 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 2,045,838 encounters on the U.S. border with Mexico. So far in 2024, the figure already stands at 1,160,805. In this vast flow of migrants, the LGBTQ community is increasingly present in Mexican territory.

"The presence and visibility of the LGBT migrant population in transit has become increasingly visible in Mexico,” said Ana Guadarrama, general coordinator of Mexico's National Network of Support for LGBT Migrants and Refugees.

Guadarrama and other experts said that the increase in the arrival of LGBTQ migrants can be traced to 2013 but, above all, to after 2017, when the first Trans Gay Migrant Caravan was formed.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/lgbtq-migrants-mexico-discrimination-violence-rcna157916

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