New Smartphone App Helps Mexico, Central America Migrants Access Food, Shelter Agence France-Presse
go to original September 30, 2017

MigrantApp (OIM Centro, Norte América y el Caribe)

A smartphone app designed to help migrants safely move through countries is being tested in Central America and Mexico this week, ahead of a wider roll-out elsewhere in the world, the UN Migration Agency said Friday.

"MigrantApp" offers information in English, Spanish and French on safety, health, accommodation and organizations offering assistance.

Its launch comes at a time when the United States is making undocumented immigration far more difficult, while ending programs that had eased the entry and residence of certain migrants.

Much of the US attention is directed at Mexicans and Central Americans who make up the largest number of undocumented migrants who have entered America.

Central America is also a major corridor for other migrants from Latin America—particularly Venezuelans right now—and from countries on other continents seeking to get to the US.

The UN Migration Agency, also called the International Organization for Migration (IOM), stressed that its new app was not a tool to help migrants try to circumvent government controls on immigration.

Instead it provides "clear and reliable information on their legal options" so they are less likely to opt for riskier, irregular crossings that often expose them to exploitation and fraud, said Roeland de Wilde, country chief of IOM in Costa Rica.

His office developed the app with funding from the US State Department.

Read the rest at Phys.org

Related: New Mexican Software Allows to Locate People in Case of Natural Disasters (The Yucatan Times)

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