Venezuelan girl drowns in Rio Grande amid migration to US

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Just days before Mexico began requiring visas for Venezuelan visitors in an attempt to slow their migration to the U.S. border, Mayerlin Mayor left her native Maracaibo with her 7-year-old daughter Victoria.

The 36-year-old school teacher living with her parents could no longer make ends meet in the face of triple-digit inflation. They traveled by bus from the western Venezuela oilfields to Medellin in the mountains of Colombia, where they boarded a flight to Mexico.

On Tuesday, mother and daughter attempted to ford the Rio Grande to Del Rio, Texas, with other migrants and smugglers. Victoria Lugo Mayor was swept away by the current, her body recovered later by Mexican authorities. Her mother made it across and was detained by U.S. Border Patrol.

“It’s very painful.... It’s a powerful blow to the family,” Guillermo Castillo, Victoria’s uncle, said by phone from Venezuela.

Mexico announced this month it would impose the visa requirement on Venezuela beginning Friday, based on a tenfold increase in the number of Venezuelan citizens arriving in Mexico in recent years seeking to travel “in an irregular manner to a third country,” a clear reference to the United States.

Last year, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration offered temporary legal residency to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who have fled their country’s economic and political crisis, but has leaned on Mexico to help slow the flow of migrants to the shared border.

On Dec. 11, Mexico suspended a 17-year-old program that had allowed Brazilian citizens to enter without a visa. The move came after Mexico detected an uptick in Brazilian migrants traveling to Mexico with the intention of reaching the United States.

“This case of the girl lays bare the drama that Venezuelans who are forced...