2023-05-12 01:21:58
migrants they rushed across the border hours before pandemic-related asylum restrictions expire Thursday, fearing the new policies will make it much more difficult to enter the United States.
According to a US official, Border Patrol agents were ordered Wednesday to begin to release some migrants with instructions to appear at an immigration office in the United States within 60 days. The official was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and provided the information to The Associated Press on the condition that his name not be used.
The Joe Biden administration has introduced measures to replace Title 42, which suspended the right to apply for asylum since March 2020 in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced a rule to make the right of asylum very difficult to those traveling through another country, such as Mexico. It also introduced GPS-tracked curfews for families released into the United States before initial asylum reviews.
Surrender
In Matamoros, across from Brownsville (Texas), migrants arrived steadily on Wednesday, undressing before descending a steep bank while they carried plastic bags full of clothes. They slowly entered the river. A man was carrying a baby in an open suitcase on his head.
On the American side, they changed into dry clothes and went through a barbed wire fence. Many turned themselves in to authoritieshoping to be released to remain legally while they pursue their case in crowded immigration courts, which takes years.
William Contreras of Venezuela said Title 42 favored the people of his beleaguered South American country, having heard that many before him had been released in the United States.
“What we understand is that they are not going to let anyone else in”said Contreras’ friend Pablo, who did not want to give his last name because he planned to cross the border illegally. “That is the reason for our urgency to cross the border today.”
border patrol detained some 10,000 migrants on Tuesday, one of the busiest days, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
That figure is almost double the daily average of about 5,200 in March.the latest publicly available data, and is close to the 11,000 that U.S. officials have forecast as the upper limit of an increase they envision after Title 42.
More than 27,000 people were being held by US Customs and Border Protection, according to the official, well beyond capacity. In March there were 8,600 detainees.
Border Patrol agents were ordered Wednesday to begin releasing immigrants at any border sector that reached 125% capacity, with instructions to Appear at an immigration office within 60 days. They were also ordered to start releasing migrants if the average detention time exceeded 60 hours or if 7,000 migrants were apprehended across the border in a single day.
In Ciudad Juárez, opposite El Paso (Texas), some migrant shelters had empty beds, since the migrants abandoned them to cross into the United States. Enrique Valenzuela, who coordinates migrant relief efforts in the state of Chihuahua, said the population of the city’s migrant shelters was half the nearly 3,000 who were staying there a few weeks ago.
On Thursday, about 400 migrants huddled against strong winds whipping up the sandy banks of the Rio Grande River east of El Paso, among groups of Texas National Guard soldiers building barbed-wire barriers. A Colombian couple approached the barbed wire to ask if they could light a fire because a 10-year-old boy was shivering with cold in the desert.
Most of the immigrants huddled under thin blankets. Texas National Guard Maj. Sean Storrud said his troops have built 18 miles of wire barriers in that area to try to reduce mass crossings and have explained to migrants the consequences of crossing illegally.
“Migrants don’t know what’s going to happen,” Storrud said.
Although Title 42 prevented many from seeking asylum, it carried no legal consequences, which encouraged them to repeat their attempts. After this Thursday, immigrants will face a ban on entering the United States for five years a possible criminal process.
Up to 30,000 people per month from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela they can enter if they apply online with a financial sponsor and access through an airport. Processing centers are opening in Guatemala, Colombia and other countries. Up to 1,000 can enter daily through land border crossings with Mexico if they get an appointment on an online application.
what’s coming
In San Diego, more than 100 immigrants, many of them Colombian families, they slept under plastic sheets between two border walls, guarded by Border Patrol agents who had nowhere to take them for processing.
Albino Leon, 51 years old, bought chicken from Tijuana vendors through the bars on the wall border with San Diego because the cookies that the agents gave him, his wife and his daughter did not stop their hunger. The news that Title 42 was coming to an end prompted the family to embark on the journey now.
“With the changes they are making to the laws, it is now or never,” said León, who flew to Mexico from Colombia and overcame a first border wall to reach US soil.
Although the US authorities forecast more crossings after Title 42 ends at 23:59. ET on Thursday – President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the border will be “chaotic for a while” – some had their doubts. Soraya Vásquez, deputy director of Al Otro Lado, an advocacy group active in Tijuana, said crossings could decrease immediately, but that the migration would persist.
Miguel Meza, head of migrant programs for Catholic Relief Services, which runs 26 migrant shelters in Mexico, estimates there are some 55,000 migrants in US border cities. Every day more arrive from the south, as well as migrants expelled by the United States to Mexico.
Carmen Josefina Characo, a Venezuelan woman who arrived in Matamoros with her adult daughter, said she was determined to keep trying to use a US government mobile app to get a place to enter the US at a land crossing. . Demand has far exceeded supplyexasperating many newcomers.
“People who have just arrived begin to hear the stories of others who have been here longer and are alarmed. ‘Oh, you have been here for four months. Well, I just arrived and I am going to cross,'” explains Characo.
Immigrants have saturated some US cities in the past year.
Denver began receiving more than 100 immigrants per day on buses last week, so activated an emergency operations center. The city is struggling to get shelter spaces.
“The numbers are staggering,” said Alan Salazar, Mayor Michael Hancock’s chief of staff.
Salazar estimates that some 9,000 immigrants have passed through Denver since late fall, when the city suddenly became a popular stopover for Venezuelans and others.
Elías Guerra, 20, arrived in Denver last week after hearing that it was a welcoming place where he could get a free bus ticket to his final destination. After spending four nights in a church shelter, Denver provided him with a $58 bus ticket to New York. He left Wednesday night.
“Here I am comfortable, safe, there is food, there is shelter, there are bathrooms”Guerra said as he waited with dozens of other migrants in a parking lot where the city processes new arrivals.
PA Agency
Translation: Elisa Carnelli
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