Volaris Airlines offers migrants $1 airline tickets to return to Central America

Volaris Airlines launched the “Reuniendo Familias” program this week to help migrants in an irregular situation in Mexico.

For those who want to return to their homes and reunite with loved ones, the ultra-low-cost Mexican airline offered flights of one dollar plus taxes, to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica.

“Volaris launches the Reuniendo Familias program in which it contributes its bit to help migrants who are looking to return home, paying only $1 USD plus taxes per airline ticket,” the company announced in a message on Twitter on June 20.

The deadline to apply is until June 30, 2019, “presented at the airports of Tijuana, Ciudad de Juárez, Guadalajara and Mexico City.

The only requirement is that “migrants of legal age must only present their Unique Identity Document (DUI) and minors must present themselves with a birth certificate or passport,” says Volaris.

Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico (GAP), which operates airports throughout Mexico, also announced that it joins the “Reuniendo Familias” program, exempting the Airport Use Fee (TUA) from Volaris flights.

GAP reported on Twitter that “it joins the efforts of the Government of Mexico to repatriate migrants who voluntarily want to return, in the best possible conditions.”

The plan is intended to reduce the migratory flow through Mexico to the United States, before the announcement of President Donald Trump to apply tariffs on all Mexican goods.

The Secretariat of the Government of Mexico said on June 21 that according to the Special Migration Plan that it is implementing, the National Guard’s deployment at the borders has ended and they are now serving 14,000 asylum seekers to the United States.

Andrés Ramírez Silva, director of the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees (Comar), last week said that the number of migrants after the migratory agreement was reached between the United States Government and Mexico, could reach 60 thousand.

“Yes in previous weeks we were in critical situations, houses and shelters already overcrowded, with this agreement with the United States that humanitarian visa applicants expect a response from the Mexican side, put the institutions against the wall,” he said.

Many migrants have been taking advantage of the immigration laws in force in the United States that allow them to qualify for asylum. However, Trump agreed with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that those who submit a request for asylum on the border between the two countries should now wait in Mexico.