“We are human beings, we are human beings and we have rights. It’s not fair that they treat us like this. We take kids, they don’t care; and we have a lot of time in Mexico.”
Génesis Parra, a Venezuelan woman with a minor on her shoulders, screamed desperately in the crowd.
The scene was recorded by the newspaper The truth on March 12 at the Paso del Norte international bridge, which connects the Mexican municipality of Ciudad Juárez with the US El Paso.
was the most recent mass crossing attempt at the point on the border between Mexico and the US that suffers the most migratory pressure, encouraged in part by a rumor circulating on social networks.
The situation ended with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) closing the bridge to pedestrian traffic and agents with riot shields repelling migrants. But it was perhaps what the mayor of Ciudad Juárez, Cruz Pérez Cuéllar, said the next day, that best demonstrated the pressure cooker that the area has become.
“The truth is that our patience level is running low“He stated in his weekly appearance. “We are going to have a stronger position in this sense (with migrants stranded without being able to cross into the US), in taking care of the city.”
That tension and despair, organizations and experts agree, is the background of the tragedy occurred on the night of this Monday in a detention center that the National Institute of Migration of Mexico (INM) has in the border municipality, where for a fire killed at least 40 people and 29 were injured.
- At least 40 dead in a fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez, on the US border.
record flow
Not only Ciudad Juárez-El Paso, the entire border strip is experiencing a record migratory flow, and this has generated headaches for the Joe Biden government but also for Mexico, which has become a tense containment room.
More than two million people were arrested trying to cross to the United States last fiscal year, which ended on September 30, an increase of 24% over the previous year. Of the total arrests, close to 500,000 corresponded to Venezuelan, Cuban and Nicaraguan citizens.
- “They told me that if I didn’t send money, they were going to sacrifice him”: the Venezuelan father who has been looking for his son who disappeared on his way to the US for 7 months.
And last December alone, US border agents apprehended 251,483 people, five times the number that same month in 2019.
According to CBP data, 202,000 were deported to their countries of origin through Title 8, and the rest were sent to Mexico under the controversial Title 42.
This is an old directive that the Trump administration revived in the context of the pandemic and that allows foreign citizens to be rejected without allowing them to request asylum and that, despite being one of his main campaign promises, the Joe Biden government does not end to withdraw.
Meanwhile, to tackle the crisis and try to reduce the flow, the US president has launched a series of plans, the last of which he announced on January 5 and came into force the following day.
Biden reported that The US would allow the entry of up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela every monthbut that it would tighten the restrictions for those who tried to cross the border with Mexico without the necessary documentation.
- What are the harsh restrictions proposed by the Biden government for asylum seekers at the US border?
The fee is limited to those who have a financial sponsor who is already in the US, has passed a background check, and passes a security investigation.
And in turn, Mexico agreed to accept up to 30,000 migrants a month—from these four countries—who attempt to walk or swim across the border into the United States and be returned. Normally they would be sent to their countries of origin, but Washington cannot easily return people from those countries for a variety of reasons, including the deteriorating relationship it has with their governments.
“Don’t show up at the border. Stay where you are and request (access) legally,” warned the US president.
The way to do it is through of the CBP One appwhich allows asylum seekers to schedule an arrival at the US ports of entry of Nogales (Arizona), Brownsville, Hidalgo, Laredo, Eagle Pass and El Paso (Texas), Calexico and San Isidro (California).
And that app has become the last stumbling block on a long journey for the thousands of migrants who are stranded on the Mexican side around those border crossings, where they arrived hoping that a possible repeal of Title 42 would finally allow them to cross the line and ask for asylum in the northern country.
“Three months treating of ask for a date”
“We have been trying to use the application for three months,” said Alián, another of those who went to the Paso del Norte international bridge on March 12, with his hand resting on the shoulder of his 4-year-old son.
“We try every day, and nothing. Meanwhile, when we have money we rent a place to sleep, when we don’t, we sleep on the street”.
Testimonials like yours, from migrants who complain that system crashes and who do not get an appointment, are repeated along the border; from Reynosa, which borders the US Hidalgo, to Matamoros, which borders Brownsville.
“Some get up before dawn and go to places where they think there is a better connection to try it,” journalist Manuel Noctis tells BBC Mundo about the situation in the Mexican border city where he is based, Tijuana.
And it is that there is a day between 700 and 800 appointments available for the eight ports of entryand the organizations that work with migrants estimate that they are more than 100,000 who try to get a.
“This is leading to a greater attempt at irregular river crossings and to saturation in the shelters,” adds Noctis, pointing to a common problem in other border municipalities.
tension escalation
But perhaps nowhere is the agglomeration as visible as in Ciudad Juárez.
Many of those who lived in the camp of hundreds of tents erected next to the border fence that the authorities dismantled in November, the majority Venezuelans, now roam the municipality.
- They evacuate the makeshift camp in Ciudad Juárez where Venezuelan migrants had been waiting for more than a month to cross into the US.
“They are desperate. They ran out of money and many sell popsicles and flowers or beg for crosses“, local journalist Itzel Aguilera tells BBC Mundo.
Although dozens of citizens have shown solidarity with them, others, fueled by certain political rhetoric, view their presence with distrust and weariness, Aguilera acknowledges.
“A crucial moment has come for put a stop and have a breaking point in this regard”, said the mayor, appealing to that sentiment, on March 13.
“It is essential, because can affect the economy of the city and thousands of people from Juarez and El Paso, or people from Las Cruces, due to activities like the one seen yesterday, which are totally unrelated to border reality,” he added.
He pointed out that there were “some complaints” about the presence of men begging in the streets and called on citizens not to give them money — “some do not want to work because they say ‘I get more on a cruise ship’—, while announcing a stronger position facing what is happening.
Although the civil society organizations that work in the sector indicate that the hardening is not new, and it has been weeks denouncing abuses in migration control operationssuch as arbitrary arrests, extortion and destruction of documentation.
BBC Mundo repeatedly called the Ciudad Juárez City Council to request an interview about how this context is linked to the tragedy of this Monday, but each time they were told that neither the mayor nor any representative of the local government was available at that time. .
Meanwhile, the investigations to clarify what happened this Monday in the Provisional Stay of Ciudad Juárez continue.
The origin of the fire is unknown, but several witnesses assured local media that it started in the area where the male migrants were held, so it is suspected that the fire would have been started by the migrants themselves.
This thesis gains strength from the declarations of the immigration authorities. In their statement, they expressed their strong rejection of “the acts that led to this tragedy.”
The authorities believe that the migrants, who they had been detained on the streets of Ciudad Juárez on Monday for not having papersthey wanted to be let out of the center to avoid being sent to the southern border of Mexico.
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