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GUATEMALA) — Ruben spent four years in Chile working as a housekeeper at a hotel and despite his experience in the hospitality and tourism industry, he was unable to get a higher paying job. Originally from Haiti, he said he was skipped over for promotions and paid higher rent than lighter-skinned immigrants.

After years of struggling financially, and with the pandemic affecting the tourism industry, he decided to migrate to Mexico, where he said he now faces the same Xenophobia he tried to flee. He’s been in Tapachula, Chiapas, for three months waiting to be interviewed for a humanitarian visa.

“The situation is very difficult for all migrants, not only Haitians, there is no hope here,” he told ABC News in an interview conducted in Spanish. “There are no jobs and they don’t want to give us our papers. All we want to do is leave Tapachula and be in another city while we have our cases processed.”

Ruben is among the tens of thousands of migrants whose asylum claim has seemingly ground to a halt as Mexico’s leading refugee agency deals with an unprecedented number of requests for humanitarian visas.

Human rights organizations warn that as they wait for their cases to be processed, migrants have become easy targets for price gouging and criminals who scam them with the promise of a way out of the city. As the Mexican government puts mounting pressure on migrants to keep them from continuing north out of the state of Chiapas, migrants said they have been forced to live in makeshift shelters in the streets and in overcrowded homes.

ABC News is not reporting Ruben’s real name in order to protect his privacy as he waits to see if he’ll be given protection under a humanitarian visa.

Tapachula is known as the main port of entry for refugees in Mexico as it borders Guatemala. Still, the number of asylum requests as of the end of November is unprecedented. According to COMAR, the Mexican government’s agency that processes refugee status, at least 123,187 requests have been filed so far in 2021, surpassing the record set in 2019 of over 70,000. The majority of those requests, 73%, were filed in the state of Chiapas. Haitians are the leading demographic in asylum requests in Mexico, the agency said.

Andrew Bahena, who works with the international programs team at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Chiapas, has been documenting instances of discrimination and violence targeted toward the migrant community. Migrants are relegated to renting rooms in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Those disparities are accentuated for migrants with darker skin tones like Haitians, the coalition said.

“If you’re a migrant and you’re just going to pay per person, there’s a certain stock of housing that you’re going to be living in, and it’s really hard to rent anywhere out of that once people understand that you’re a foreigner,” he said. “That happens with food where people get charged more for the same kilo of rice. The problems get worse as the system stops working.”

As the nation’s leading refugee agency, COMAR is the only entity able to grant refugee status and issue travel documents that allow migrants to move within the country freely. The agency’s director, Andres Ramirez, said they’re able to process up to 5,000 cases a month, less than a third of the requests that were filed in November alone.

“This year’s wave has been gigantic,” Ramirez told ABC News in Spanish. “In addition to the large quantity, some people who don’t fit the profile of a refugee as the law establishes have submitted requests because they don’t have other immigration alternatives.”

South American countries like Chile and Brazil have seen large quantities of Haitian migrants since 2010, when a devastating earthquake claimed more than 200,000 lives in Haiti. Those who are now fleeing Central and South American countries due to financial instability may have a harder time being granted refugee status in Mexico.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or ACNUR, as it’s known in Mexico, has been assisting the Mexican government in providing aid and temporary accommodations in three local shelters in Tapachula. Josep Herreros, a senior protection officer for UNHCR, thinks the congestion in the city can be eased by providing alternatives for people who do not qualify for refugee status, but still need support.

“People are suffering from the congestion,” Herreros told ABC News in an interview in Spanish. “This flow is what we call a mixed movement, where we have refugees who need protection and other migrants who have other needs. We think it’s important to provide alternatives to the asylum process.”

As another way of easing the congestion in Tapachula, the National Institute of Migration has been busing some migrants to other cities where they can continue their asylum process.

Buses have been departing from the Olympic Stadium but Arturo Viscarra, an attorney for CHIRLA, said those efforts have slowed to a “trickle” and thousands of people have descended upon the area. On Monday, Viscarra filmed how countless people took cover from the sun in makeshift shelters outside of the stadium.

“There’s this complete lack of response,” Viscarra said. “It’s both a result of the policies with the combination of the racism that makes it more difficult for Haitians to obtain work and housing.”

The National Institute of Migration did not respond to ABC News’ request for an interview.

Government checkpoints have been established outside of the city and throughout Mexico’s major highways, making it difficult for migrants to leave without the threat of being deported.

In recent months, groups of migrants sometimes referred to as “caravans” have formed in an effort to bypass the checkpoints and continue further into Mexico, with some hoping to reach the U.S. border, according to CHIRLA. In September, the U.S. Border Patrol was embroiled in a national controversy when images were published depicting mounted patrol agents using their horses to push back Haitian migrants as they attempted to cross the Rio Grande into Del Rio, Texas.

Ruben said he cried when he saw those images and felt disappointed in how the U.S. is treating Haitians. He has also grown increasingly frustrated with the asylum process in Mexico, but his dream is to settle in Mexico City and work in the tourism industry.

“I’m not trying to go to the United States; it’s not where I can have a better life,” he said. “I’m looking for a place where I can live peacefully. If I can realize my dream here in Mexico and have a good job, I’ll stay here.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(COLORADO) — Rep. Lauren Boebert, the gun-toting Colorado Republican who is under threat of being removed from her committee assignment for Islamophobic comments targeted at fellow lawmakers, faced more backlash on Wednesday after sharing a family photo showing her four children posing with guns in front of a Christmas tree.

“The Boeberts have your six, @RepThomasMassie!” Boebert wrote on Twitter late Tuesday, in apparent solidarity with GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a fellow gun enthusiast, who faced criticism for posting a similar photo last week of his family proudly holding firearms in front of their Christmas tree. Both families appeared smiling while heavily armed ahead of the holiday season.

The Boeberts have your six, @RepThomasMassie!

(No spare ammo for you, though) pic.twitter.com/EnDYuXaHDF

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) December 8, 2021

“Santa, please bring more ammo,” Massie’s photo with his wife and six kids posted Dec. 4 was captioned.

Merry Christmas! 🎄
ps. Santa, please bring ammo. 🎁 pic.twitter.com/NVawULhCNr

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 4, 2021

“(No spare ammo for you, though),” Boebert added in her Dec. 7 tweet.

On the heels of Massie’s post last week but ahead of her own, Boebert offered her support to her colleague’s photo, tweeting, “That’s my kind of Christmas card!”

Boebert and Massie, appearing to share the photos of their families brandishing firearms in an apparent appeal to their bases, did so within a week of a mass shooting at a high school in Michigan that killed four students and left at least eight seriously injured. That shooting came days after the father of the 15-year-old suspect allegedly purchased him a gun as an early Christmas present.

Democrats have been quick to criticize both the photos of Boebert and Massie — with Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez mocking Boebert early Wednesday in a tweet that garnered nearly 100,000 likes and counting.

“Tell me again where Christ said “use the commemoration of my birth to flex violent weapons for personal political gain”?” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to the photo. “lol @ all the years Republicans spent on cultural hysteria of society ‘erasing Christmas and it’s meaning’ when they’re doing that fine all on their own.”

“When you pose in front of a Christmas Tree and can name all those guns but can’t name the gifts of the Wise Men,” the New York progressive added.

When you pose in front of a Christmas Tree and can name all those guns but can’t name the gifts of the Wise Men 🥴🥴🥴

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 8, 2021

The backlash to Boebert’s photo comes as Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., plans to introduce a resolution on Wednesday to strip the Colorado Republican of her House committee assignments over her anti-Muslim remarks aimed at Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., — with the aim of forcing House Democratic leadership to punish Boebert before the end of the year. Omar said over the weekend she is confident House Speaker Nancy Pelos will take “decisive action.”

It’s far from the first time Boebert, a freshman in this Congress, has faced criticism.

The Colorado Republican who owns a gun-themed eatery called “Shooters” released a political ad earlier this year showing her walking around the Capitol, verbally attacking congressional Democrats and ending with the sound of a gunshot. She is also facing questions from Democrats over her potential ties to pro-Trump supporters that were present at the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The pro-democracy, progressive media PAC MeidasTouch tweeted late Tuesday that it would not post the “deranged” image of Boebert and her children “holding weapons of war” and instead, listed those killed last week in Michigan to “honor the teens who were murdered due to this fetishization of guns.”

We will not be posting the deranged photo of Lauren Boebert and her young children holding weapons of war.

Instead, let’s honor the teens who were murdered due to this fetishization of guns:

Hana St. Juliana, 14.
Tate Myre, 16.
Justin Shilling, 17.
Madisyn Baldwin, 17. pic.twitter.com/IdQnHXobNA

— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) December 8, 2021

ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) —  Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol, says the committee will move to hold Mark Meadows in contempt after the former Trump chief of staff failed to appear before the panel for his scheduled appearance this morning.

On Tuesday, two sources familiar with the matter told ABC News that Meadows had informed the committee that he is no longer cooperating with the probe, after Meadows had earlier agreed to appear before the panel.

Meadows’ attorney George J. Terwilliger II told committee members in a letter that they had made an appearance for a deposition untenable because they have “no intention of respecting boundaries concerning Executive Privilege.”

In response, Thompson told Terwilliger in a letter last night that the committee has “no choice” but to recommend the former chief of staff be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate.

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(GUANTANAMO) — Through its nearly two-decade existence, the Guantanamo Bay detention center has sparked intense, partisan debate. At a Senate hearing on closing the camp, the first of its kind in roughly six years, lawmakers could find little common ground apart from dissatisfaction with the Biden administration.

In his opening remarks, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the chairman of the chamber’s Judiciary committee, expressed his frustration with the president’s lack of response to Democrats’ calls to shut down the military prison.

“I am disappointed. Disappointed that the president and attorney general have yet to respond to my letters,” he said. “And I’m disappointed the administration declined to send a witness to testify at today’s hearing on how they’re working to close Guantanamo.”

Although the White House says shuttering the facility, located within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, is a goal, so far it has taken few steps toward accomplishing it and has declined to set a timeline.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee’s top ranking Republican, also lamented that the White House had not supplied any witnesses to testify on reports from the intelligence community or the administration’s progress toward shuttering the prison.

“No one from the administration has come to defend the president’s plan to close Guantanamo,” he said. “And I’m not sure there is a plan.”

Grassley accused the Biden administration of taking a “no plan approach” during this summer’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“I fear that his plan to withdraw from Guantanamo Detention Facility may be no different,” he said.

Although Guantanamo has earned a dubious reputation as an indefinite holding space for war on terror suspects and a battleground over the admissibility of testimony obtained through enhanced interrogation techniques many equate to torture, Republicans argued Afghanistan’s return to Taliban control has intensified the need for the detention camp.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., said “229 of the 729 released from Gitmo have gone back to the fight. This is nuts,” citing the number of former Guantanamo detainees the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has either confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terrorist activities.

Durbin objected to that statistic, noting recidivism rates are much lower among former detainees released after 2009, when current rules for transfer were put in place by Congress. The chairman also noted that of the 39 men still imprisoned in Guantanamo, more than two-thirds have never been formally charged with a crime.

“How can that possibly be justice?” he asked.

Even in cases where charges have been levied, such as that of the alleged mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the process of the military tribunal has been a source of anguish for many. Mohammed was arraigned nearly a decade ago, and while pretrial hearings drag on, the trial itself doesn’t yet have a set start date.

Colleen Kelly, a witness at the hearing who lost her brother Bill when the North Tower of the World Trade Center was struck by a hijacked jet, testified that she and many other family members of those lost on that day now want to see a plea agreement reached in the hopes it provides some level of closure, even if it means taking the death penalty off the table for the defendants.

“Family members want a measure of accountability and justice before our deaths,” she said.

Chief Defense Counsel for Military Commissions Brig. Gen. John Baker, another witness, argued that the ongoing cases must be brought to “as rapid as a conclusion as possible.”

“Notice I don’t say as just a conclusion as possible. It is too late in the process for the current military commissions to do justice for anyone,” he said, calling the proceedings a “failed experiment” and noting they had only resulted in one final conviction.

As for the other detainees, beyond partisanship, a dearth of practical options for their relocation is a major hurdle, even for those who already met the criteria for transfer.

In the past, administrations have engaged in sometimes years-long negotiations with countries receiving prisoners to secure some level of security assurance. Congress’ requirements for transfer and destabilization in the Middle East have left few viable options.

“We can’t get countries to take them and give assurances they’ll keep an eye on them,” Jamil Jaffer, the founder and executive director of the National Security Institute, testified.

But the man who opened the camp– Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert — maintains it is past time for the camp to close.

“The issue isn’t whether to close Guantanamo, but how,” he said, adding that the White House should appoint a person to tackle the task and set a deadline. “I was given 96 hours to open it — 96 days to close it seems reasonable.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Republican-led efforts to repeal President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate on private businesses will once again get a vote in the Senate Wednesday, and this time a repeal is expected to pass.

The Senate will likely vote Wednesday on Republican Sen. Mike Braun’s effort to repeal the mandate on private sector businesses with more than 100 employees. Every Republican signed onto the proposal.

Republicans are bringing up the repeal for a vote using a procedural tool called the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn rules created by federal agencies and only requires 51 votes to pass the Senate.

The bill would still need to go over to the House, where it is unlikely to be brought up by Democratic leadership. Republicans could use a procedural tool to push a vote on the measure early next year, but it’s unclear if they’d have the votes to do it.

But during a press conference on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that if Congress were to send the repeal to Biden’s desk, he’d strike it down.

“We certainly hope the Senate, Congress will stand up to the anti-vaccine and testing crowd. We’re going to continue to work to implement these,” Psaki said. “If it comes to the president’s desk, he will veto it.”

Still, this won’t be a party-line vote in the Senate. As vaccine mandates lag in popularity nationwide, some moderate Democrats are expected to back the repeal effort during Wednesday’s vote, giving it the necessary votes to clear the Senate.

At least two Democrats are also expected to vote to end the mandate: Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.

“I will strongly support a bill to overturn the federal government vaccine mandate for private businesses. I have long said we should incentivize, not penalize, private employers whose responsibility it is to protect their employees from COVID-19,” Manchin said in a statement last week.

He’s been on the record repeatedly about his opposition to mandates on private businesses, though he supports the mandate for federal employees.

Braun, in an MSNBC interview, said he’s spoken to three or four other swing state Democrats who may also vote with Republicans.

“Anybody that is listening to their people back home, this doesn’t poll when it’s vaccine or job,” Braun said. “Even when you say vaccine or get tested or job, most of the people that are digging in regardless of their reasons aren’t viewing it as an option.”

Every Republican is expected to support the repeal, following last week’s party-line vote to zero out funds for the mandate during government funding negotiations last week.

Most Democrats will vote to keep the mandate in place. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a press conference Tuesday, said the vote is “anti science” and “anti common sense”

“It’s ridiculous, it makes no sense, and Democrats think it is the wrong way to go,” Schumer said.

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