EL PASO, Texas — Along the southern border of the United States, two cities — El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico — prepared Sunday for the arrival of up to 5,000 more migrants a day once restrictions are lifted from COVID-19 -Pandemic in the coming days, implementing plans to provide emergency shelter, food and other basic services.
On the Mexican side of the international border in the morning on the banks of the Rio Grande (Rio Grande) only piles of used clothes, shoes and backpacks remained, where until a few days ago hundreds of people were queuing to hand themselves over to the US authorities. A young Ecuadorian watched uncertainly from the Mexican side; He asked two reporters if they knew anything about what would happen to him if he turned himself in without a US sponsor, then carefully removed his shoes and socks and began wading through the shallow water.
On the US side, next to a small fence guarded by several Border Patrol vehicles, he joined a line of a dozen people waiting for federal agents to arrive.
El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego told The Associated Press on Sunday that the region, which is home to one of the nation’s busiest border crossings, is coordinating shelter and resettlement efforts with nongovernmental organizations and other cities. He also called on the state and federal governments to send humanitarian aid at a time when he is preparing for a massive wave of new migrants beginning Wednesday, when the Title 42 public health measure is due to end.
TITLE 42 HAS DETERRED OVER 2.5 MILLION MIGRANTS
This rule has been used to prevent more than 2.5 million migrants from crossing the border since March 2020.
31-year-old Carmen Aros, living in a refugee shelter near the river in a slum of Ciudad Juárez, didn’t know much about US politics. In fact, he said he heard the border could close on December 21.
She fled drug cartel violence in the Mexican state of Zacatecas a month ago, shortly after the birth of her fifth daughter and the disappearance of her husband. The Methodist pastor who runs the Good Samaritan Animal Shelter has put her on a list to receive parole on humanitarian grounds in the US, and every week she waits for the call.
“They told me there was asylum in Juarez… the truth is I didn’t know much,” she commented, sitting on a bunk she shared with the girls. “We came here… to see if the American government would solve our case.”
MIGRANTS WATCH THE WORLD CUP FINALS FROM MEXICAN SHELTERS
At a huge Mexican government shelter in a former factory in Ciudad Juárez, dozens of migrants watched the World Cup final on two TVs on Sunday while a medical team from El Paso treated many of those affected for respiratory illnesses amid the cold temperatures.
Constant policy changes complicate plans, said Dylan Corbett, director of the Hope Border Institute, a Catholic organization that supports migrants in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. The group founded the clinic two months ago.
“There’s a lot of contained pain,” Corbett said. “I’m worried about what’s going to happen.” Given the chaos of government policy, “most of the work falls to the religious communities to try to fix things and deal with the fallout.”
A few blocks across the border, El Paso saw sleet fall as about 80 migrants huddled together and ate tacos prepared by volunteers. Temperatures in the region are forecast to drop below freezing this week.
“We will continue to give them everything we can,” said Veronica Castorena, who with her husband brought tortillas and ground beef, as well as some blankets for those who might spend the night on the streets.
Jeff Petion, owner of a school for truckers in the city, said this is the second time he and his staff have come to help migrants on the road. “They’re out there, they’re cold, they’re hungry, so I wanted them to know they’re not alone,” he said.
But outside of Petion’s business, Kathy Countiss, a retiree, expressed concern that newcomers to El Paso are spiraling out of control, draining resources and drawing the attention of law enforcement instead of securing El Paso’s streets.
EL PASO ISSUED AN EMERGENCY DECLARATION SEARCHING FOR RESOURCES
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser issued a statewide emergency declaration Saturday to access additional local and state-level resources for installing shelters and other urgent assistance.
Samaniego said the order came a day after El Paso authorities sent a letter to Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott asking for humanitarian assistance to the region. He said the request was for resources to care for and relocate newly arrived migrants, not the deployment of additional security elements.
The judge said he has not received a response to the request and that if the city does not receive government assistance soon, he plans to issue a statewide emergency declaration detailing the type of assistance available in the area is needed. He urged state and federal agencies to provide additional funding, affirming that they already had the strategy but lacked financial, essential and voluntary resources.
El Paso officials have been working closely with nongovernmental organizations to provide temporary housing for migrants while processing and assigning sponsors, and to relocate them to larger cities where they can fly or take buses to their destinations, Samaniego said. Starting Wednesday, they will join forces with non-governmental organizations in an emergency command center, he added, similar to what they did in response to the COVID-19 emergency.
Neither Abbott nor officials from El Paso or U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) immediately responded to requests for comment.
Abbott has committed billions of dollars to “Operation Lone Star,” an unprecedented border security effort that has bused migrants into “sanctuaries” like New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., along with a massive state presence of agents and the National Guard along the Texas-Mexico border.
Additionally, the Republican governor has spurred efforts to build former President Donald Trump’s border wall on private land along the border with Mexico, raising funds to fund the project.
Of the nine border protection sectors along the border with Mexico, El Paso was the fifth largest until last March and suddenly became by far the most popular in October, edging ahead of Del Rio, Texas, which in turn had replaced the Rio Grande Valley late last year in breakneck speed. It is not known why El Paso has become such a strong magnet, especially in September.
The policy imposed by former President Donald Trump allowing migrants to be expelled from the border due to the COVID-19 pandemic would end on December 21. To see more from Telemundo, visit https://www.nbc.com/networks/telemundo.
The recent surge in activity in El Paso — first by Venezuelans and more recently by Nicaraguans — recalled a brief period in 2019 when the western tip of Texas and the eastern reaches of New Mexico were quickly overwhelmed by the arrival of migrants from Cuba and Central America. El Paso has been a relatively quiet area for illegal border crossings for years.
Meanwhile, a group of about 300 migrants began walking north from an area near the Mexico-Guatemalan border on Saturday before Mexican authorities stopped them. Some of them wanted to reach the northern border on December 21, mistakenly believing that they would not be able to apply for asylum after the measure ended.
Misinformation about US immigration regulations is common among migrants. The caravan is made up mostly of Central Americans and Venezuelans who have crossed Mexico’s southern border and have been waiting in vain for transit or exit visas, immigration formats that would have allowed them to cross Mexican territory towards the border with the United States.