The hardest thing is not to cut yourself while crossing the fence. Before jumping, you should place a thick blanket or a bundle of clothing over the blades. Or if you’re lucky, someone will bring a pair of pliers to make a hole and then you can crawl in. Once inside, raise your hands, walk slowly along the wall and hand yourself over to the Border Patrol at Gate 36. It is the instruction manual by Alejandro Cárdenas, a recent architecture graduate from the University of Caracas. His cousin, who cruised like that last week, explained everything to him step by step on WhatsApp. Now the rest of the Cárdenas family is missing: three other cousins, two sisters, the mother and a three-year-old granddaughter. They are all waiting on the Mexican edge of the Rio Grande, which in this section is only a four meter wide stream, and are convinced that they too will make it this evening: “People come by every day. Today I go in with the blessing of God.”
Gate 36, on the border of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, with El Paso, Texas, has become something of a good luck charm for hundreds of migrants, particularly Venezuelans, who have concentrated on this faith-laden stretch of desert land in recent weeks. There are pieces of clothing on the ground, even a tent. They came to set up small camps on the very first American crossing, across the river and already at the wire fences. In recent days, videos of large groups advancing in the race amid the resignation of Mexican immigration officials have spread across networks.
A migrant washes clothes in the river near the border in Ciudad Juárez. Rodrigo Oropeza
So much turmoil has led to increased security in the area. The Texas National Guard has broken up the camps with strikes, and tonight they will be guarded by five vans and a handful of armed guards. Every now and then a blue police light shines in someone in the group’s face, but it doesn’t seem to be enough to intimidate them. “I’ve been walking for almost two months, I’ve seen people die, I’ve been robbed, I’ve been hungry, so now I’m not going to leave,” says Gregorio Vázquez, owner of a small mechanical workshop in a Venezuelan town. As he tells how his wife and daughter have spent these days crawling through one of the holes in the wire fence, a voice warns that another group has managed to get to the other side and let them through the famous Gate 36 to sluice. You scream, dance and iron the cuffs on this side. It’s an adrenaline rush for the people who continue to arrive, not caring about the wind that kicks up ever larger clouds of sand. “Dad, it’s our turn next,” says a woman, her face covered with a scarf to protect herself from the dust.
Border patrol records estimate that 50,000 undocumented Venezuelans entered the United States in September alone. They are among the nationalities contributing most to the growth of a flow of migrants that has continued to increase since May, when the end was decreed. of Title 42, a health exemption extended since the pandemic that allowed immediate deportation without proceedings. Analysts explain the reasons for this peak among Venezuelans as a kind of effect caused by a mix of good news and half-baked rumors.
A group of migrants of Venezuelan origin are waiting for the opportunity to enter the United States this Thursday. Rodrigo Oropeza
On the one hand, it is true that the US government has issued work permits for Venezuelan quotas. It is also true that after the diplomatic break since the time of Hugo Chávez, there is no bilateral deportation treaty and when detained at the border they are usually in a legal limbo between their release and their trial. This break can last up to two years. But that doesn’t mean everyone is welcome. The Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this week that it had reached an agreement with Caracas. Deportations would begin “quickly in the coming days.”
Rocky Balboa in El Paso
Karismar Rodríguez is 38 years old and was just released from one of El Paso’s tent-like migrant detention centers. He crossed the river five days ago, put a blanket over the blades and turned himself in to the police. On this Thursday afternoon, a few hours before her compatriots prepare to make their nightly jump, she sits on a street in the Texas city and talks about how bad things were for her before she was released. “At four in the morning they woke us up to shower and barely gave me any medication.” Karismar’s eyes are very red and he constantly blinks while he speaks. The final leg to the border was three days on the roof of a train, a goods mastodon, the nefarious beast as it is known among migrants. “Because of so much wind and so much cold, I got ear infections. And now I think I have an eye infection.”
Her husband, who accompanied her on the two-month trip through almost ten countries, listens to her as she stands and nods his head. He remembers seeing bodies floating in the Darién, the jungle that separates Colombia from Panama. But he is keenly aware that the worst happened in Mexico. “The police took us off the train, stole our money and left us in the desert. And thank God we got rid of the bad guys (coyotes, human traffickers).” He sums up his migrant odyssey this way: “We are like Rocky Balboa, the boxer in the movie, who is in pain all day.”
Both wear a yellow bracelet on their wrist. That means they are sent from Texas to some of the “sanctuary cities,” so called because of their more protectionist policies toward migrants. They go to New York. There they face the first hearing on the deportation process in June 2024. They cannot work legally and have to make a living. “I don’t know what will happen, but I’m sure I’ll be better off there than in my country.”
A group of people walk in front of the border wall between Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua) and El Paso (Texas).Rodrigo Oropeza
The family next door is sent to Chicago. They are another group of Venezuelans. The mother says they also crossed several paths without losing sight of one of her children, almost a baby, as he played on the sidewalk. The street is crowded. The city has even placed public toilets on the sidewalks. Everyone waits outside the door of a blue-painted church and a giant Virgin of Guadalupe to receive food and clothing. El Paso, a Democratic oasis in very Republican Texas, is saturated. There is no more space in the emergency shelters. Mayor Oscar Leeser said at the end of September that the city had reached a “breaking point” and could no longer help all migrants.
The mayor even thanked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a hardline Republican hawk, for the policy of distributing them in sanctuary cities. It is a pressure strategy to undermine President Biden’s administration’s most permissive policies on migration. Abbot is addicted to provocation. It has hung a wall of buoys along the river’s largest stretches and typically blocks commercial land access under the guise of extensive controls, resulting in millions of dollars in economic losses for Mexico.
Given the pressure, Biden has increasingly tightened his fist at the border. In May, after the end of Title 42, it sent a total of more than 24,000 agents across the 3,200 kilometer strip. Another twist at the end of September with 800 new agents and the announcement of an acceleration in deportations. And that same week, the president made a dead letter of the promise he had made upon his arrival at the White House: “No more American taxes will be used to build a wall.” By executive order, he annulled 26 federal laws , allowing the construction of 20 miles of fence in South Texas.
The massive influx of migrants in recent months threatens to break all previous records. More than 200,000 arrests are expected this year. From now on, the government will combine a heavy hand with measures to regulate the flow, such as quota systems, agreements with countries of origin or the digital system for applying for asylum through the CBP with a single application. On the streets of El Paso, one of the veteran Venezuelans believes his compatriots will keep coming. He has a tattoo that reads “The Neck” above his right eyebrow. It is his nickname because he drove buses in a neighborhood of Caracas. “The money is of no use to you.” He has been in El Paso for almost a year. He is facing his second deportation hearing but does not have a final date yet. El Cuello says goodbye to riding a red bike because tomorrow he’ll get up early to work in construction “for a few good bucks.”
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