MISSION, Texas: A few hundred yards from the murky, green waters of the Rio Grande River, a handwritten sign hidden inside a plastic cover owned by the Department of Homeland Security is a duct engraved in the trunk of a weesatch tree
It says “Asylum”: the Spanish word for asylum.
It is written in large letters on a piece of cardboard on an arrow showing the direction of the Anzalduas port of entry in Mission, Texas and the directive “Walk like this on the bridge, 3 km” or, roughly, “Walk to the bridge “.
“They used to have masks [stuffed inside]”Assistant agent Ray Reyna of the Hidalgo County District 3 agent’s office told The Post, adding the poster and a similar one” recently “amid the change in the Biden administration. .
Signs were found by The Post on Thursday night during a walk with the police office in the backyard of Anzalduas Park that migrants cross after crossing the Gran River with rafts from Reynosa, Mexico. Evidence of his presence, including a wet plaid blanket, water bottles, and a small children’s mask printed with blue and pink fish, filled the very worn paths they take through the brush from the river.
Local police officers believed the signs had been left by U.S. Border Patrol officers because they were sealed with DHS-owned covers, although Customs and Border Protection denied their agents were there. possess.
The signs are further evidence of President Biden’s more welcoming approach to immigration, which has led to an increase in border crossings. DHS officials said it is on the verge of becoming the largest in two decades after a series of strict immigration policies set by former President Donald Trump were rolled back.
“They come in with the mentality that they’ll stay here … It’s very different, we’re not used to it,” said Stable Ray Trevino, who took The Post during the trip while working on Operation Stonegarden, a federal grant program that funds local police units to help with border security measures.
“Once Trump came out and Biden came in, everyone started coming in, too.”
Under Trump, Trevino said he would see a handful of immigrants every night, “a trio here or there, a group of five, a group of seven” deliberately trying to hide and be smuggled in. But these days, at least a hundred immigrants arrive in the area almost every night, sometimes as many as 300 in a few hours, who easily surrender to law enforcement and “want to be found,” Trevino said.
“Right now all these are family groups, they are voluntary income. They are not here to get caught, but to surrender, they come to seek asylum,” says Trevino, who has been working for nine years.
“We’re just guiding them, we’re showing them the way.”
Rich said he patrolled the brush “mainly for safety reasons” and recently, the area has been dubbed the “family group area” due to the large number of children and parents entering.
“The problem is it gets dark and you turn around,” Rich explained.
“We’ve made people die here, get lost and die.”
During the trip, The Post encountered a group of 11 migrants, including five adults, five young children and a 17-year-old girl, who had been left in a white truck on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande and sent on a raft.
Olinda Marilin Portillo Mazariegos ran out of breath after climbing the embankment and crossing the mosques with her six-year-old daughter, Silvia Olinda Marilín López Portillo, after her long 32-day trip from Guatemala.
“My country is not the place to be, children are murdered and raped at night,” explained Mazariegos, who paid at least $ 8,000 for his passage and previously worked as a psychologist.
She said a child had been raped in her hometown, where gangs run rampant, but when she reported the culprit she was “threatened,” which is what prompted her to leave.
“There is no law in my country,” said the mother, who wore nothing but clothes on her back as she took her daughter’s hand, explaining her plans to join a friend in Nova. Orleans and finding work as a cleaner or cook could even transfer your professional certifications to the US.
“I am not afraid anymore. I used to be very scared, but not now. ”
Jhosselyn Rojas Solano, 25, traveled nearly 4,000 miles from Bolivia over two weeks by bus and on foot with her five-year-old son, Matías Vegamonte Rojas, to escape domestic violence.
“For the past seven years, she has been bothering and threatening me because I had asked her for child support because she was my husband and I needed financial help for my son,” Solano explained as she wept softly.
“He threatened me, hit me and I reported him, and there they did nothing,” the mother continued as Matías hugged her leg.
“And this last time he threatened me that if I kept looking for child support, he would hurt me and my son and take my other child. That’s why I decided to come here. “
Solano, who worked as a hairdresser at home, described the messy journey she undertook to find safety and the difficulties she faced in making the long journey alone with a small child.
“The weather, the duration of the trip, the pressure and the fear that something will happen on the trip. You hear about so many things going on, about the fear I had for my son and there were days when we were hungry, all these things, it was hard, ”the mother said, adding that there were days when she had to take her son as walked miles.
Solano hopes to join his uncle in Virginia, where he will be able to start a new life and provide for his children.
“I came because I couldn’t take it anymore. I hope that we will be given the opportunity to settle there in the United States. “
In fiscal year 2021, there has been a huge increase in “family units” arriving specifically in the Rio Grande Valley, accounting for 42% of all parents and children who crossed the southwestern border, making that the other eight CBP sectors were tiny, according to the data.
In fiscal year 2020, 8,129 parents and children crossed the Rio Grande and in fiscal year 2021, that figure more doubled to 16,583, up 104 percent, according to the data. In comparison, other hot spots in Del Rio and El Paso had only 6,438 and 5,798 families, respectively.
The big jump in South Texas is probably due to a law passed in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, located just across the Rio Grande, according to local media and aid groups.
It prevents the state from accepting migrants traveling with young children who would normally be expelled from the United States under Title 42, a rule imposed last year by Trump that allowed CBP to immediately deport migrants to curb the spread of COVID-19.
“You can’t go back to children under six in Mexico. The United States has the policy of closing the border, they have not changed it, but the Border Patrol cannot return any child under the age of six to Mexico and, therefore, they are forced to release them in the United States … [that’s] why are we seeing so many families, ”said Sister Norma Pimentel, who runs the Catholic Charities Respite Center in downtown McAllen, where 200 to 600 migrant families have received care every day during the latest wave.
“They found out that if they had a child six years old or younger, they would not be returned. So they really expect the Border Patrol to see them … once processed, the border patrol calls me and tells me that they have a group to leave and that this happens all day from early in the morning. morning until very late ”.
Local CBP officials would not confirm whether they are forced to accept possible expulsions of Title 42 because of the new Mexican law and directed The Post to its national office, which did not return any requests for comment.
Pimentel, who has been working with migrants since the 1980s, said the families he serves are not bad people, they are just trying to escape a bad situation.
“The situation in his country is difficult. Not sure. They are afraid to be there. They are afraid of their children and find any opportunity they can to try to get to this country in the hope that they will be safer here, ”the nun explained.
“Your children can be recruited easily [by gangs], kidnapped, murdered, have more difficulty working because cartels or gangs make it impossible. There are no jobs available, if they work, they steal their money, they force it and therefore it is the kind of life they see there and therefore they prefer to go north in the hope of finding a safer place. ” .