Migrants flooded the streets of Ciudad Juárez on Mexico's northern border, despite progress and reductions in migration promised by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador after his meeting with a delegation from the United States on Wednesday.
For the past two weeks, there have been constant groups of dozens of migrants walking around the clock with children on their shoulders or hand in hand to Gate 36 of the border wall between Juárez and El Paso, Texas, which is almost all of that All year round it is the epicenter of migration between Mexico and the United States.
“It's complicated because they don't let us pass and you have to suffer a lot along the way,” said Dariel Sánchez, a migrant from Venezuela who was stranded in the town of Ceballos for more than five days with almost a thousand migrants lying at the border between the northern states of Durango and Chihuahua.
“The caravans come from Tapachula, Chiapas, from Mexico City and take a different direction, which means there are quite a few migrants,” he added.
During an interview at the Rio Grande border, Dariel stated that agents from the National Institute of Immigration (INM) detained her as she was traveling through Mexico and took her off the train in the middle of the desert in near-zero temperatures without thinking about the fact that she was traveling with children.
“We had to sleep on the street, on the ice. I don't know why they don't let us pass if we haven't caused any harm or anything, we just want to pass to apply for a permit or asylum,” he lamented.
A decline in migration?
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken led an urgent visit by White House officials on Wednesday in response to the unprecedented surge in irregular migration in December, which saw an average of more than 10,000 people per day arrive at the shared border with Mexico, López Obrador confirmed.
However, the Mexican president defended the meeting's findings, ensuring that migration is “already declining” after the unprecedented surge that led the US to temporarily close border crossings in Texas, Arizona and California.
“The most important thing (at the meeting) was that progress was made and we understood each other and there were even good results. Of course it also has to do with the end of the year, not to get too excited, but migration is decreasing,” the president said in his morning conference on Friday.
In contrast, María Eugenia Campos, the governor of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juárez is located, told media on Thursday that she expects 3,000 more migrants to arrive in the state this week.
Dilia Padilla has been in transit for four months since leaving her home country of Colombia.
This week he arrived in Ciudad Juárez by train and immediately headed to the Rio Grande to try to get through Gate 36.
“It was difficult, I'm doing an odyssey for four months, thank God we're here, it wasn't easy, now we have to wait until we see how we can get across, not to the (American) dream, but to the one, what God has promised to many people and also to me,” he said in front of the border river.
The South American said the journey was long and stormy, although they received a lot of help in all the countries they passed through.
“On foot, by train, he often abandoned us, often he didn't make progress, we arrived with the help of many people. I thank the president of Jiménez (municipality of Chihuaha), we were a large group left behind in Ceballos and they offered us their hand,” he said.