REYNOSA, Mexico (AP) – In one of Mexico’s most famous cities in terms of organized crime, migrants are being deported from the United States overnight, exhausted from travel, disappointed not to have the opportunity to search asylum and at a crossroads of places where you go next.
Marisela Ramirez, who was returned to Reynosa about 4 a.m. Thursday, took her 14-year-old son and left five other children (one just 8 months old) in Guatemala because she could not afford to pay more money to smugglers. Now, faced with another agonizing option, she opted to send her son to the border alone to settle with a sister in Missouri, aware that the United States allows unaccompanied children to seek asylum.
“We’re in God’s hands,” Ramirez, 30, said in a barren park with dying grass and a large gazebo in the center that serves as a refuge for migrants.
Lesdny Suyapa Castillo, 35, said in tears that she would return to Honduras with her 8-year-old daughter, who was under the gazebo breathing heavily with her eyes partially open and the flies circling her. After not being paid for three months as a nurse in Honduras during the pandemic, she wants to work constantly in the United States to send an older daughter to medical school. A friend from New York encouraged her to try again.
“I would love to go, but a mother doesn’t want to see her son in that condition,” she said after dropping her off at Reynosa at 10 p.m.
Decisions take place amid what Border Patrol officials say is an extraordinarily high 30-day average of 5,000 daily encounters with migrants. Children traveling alone are allowed to stay in the United States to seek asylum while almost all single adults are deported to Mexico under pandemic-era rules that deny them the opportunity to seek humanitarian protection.
Families with children under the age of 7 are allowed to stay in the United States to seek asylum, according to a Border Patrol officer who spoke to reporters on Friday on condition of anonymity. Others in the families – only 300 out of 2,200 on Monday – are expelled.
Reynosa, a city of 700,000, is where many migrants are returned after being evicted from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. The Border Patrol has said the vast majority of migrants are deported to Mexico after less than two hours in the United States to limit the spread of COVID-19, meaning many arrive when it gets dark.
Under normal times, immigrants are returned to Mexico under bilateral agreements which limit deportations to daylight hours and larger steps. But under the authority of the pandemic, Mexicans and citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras can be deported to Mexico overnight and in smaller cities.
Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott acknowledged in an interview last year that agreements limiting times and places for deportations are suspended “on paper,” but said U.S. authorities are trying to accommodate the wishes of Mexican officials. The US also coordinates with non-governmental organizations.
“I would never sit here looking at you and say Tijuana is not dangerous, Juárez is not dangerous, Tamaulipas (state) is not dangerous,” Scott said. “However, much of it is like any other city in the United States. There are certain American cities that have pockets that are very dangerous and there are pockets that are not. “
Tamaulipas, which includes Reynosa, is one of five Mexican states that the U.S. State Department says U.S. citizens should not visit. A travel advice in the USA says heavily armed criminal groups patrol Reynosa in marked and unmarked vehicles.
More than 100 parents and children who were evicted during the night waited in a square in front of the Mexican border crossing at sunrise on Saturday, many embittered by the experience and scared to venture into the city. Several said they left Central America in the past two months because they could finally afford it, but information on President Joe Biden’s more immigrant-friendly policies contributed to his decisions. Some reported paying smugglers up to $ 10,000 per person to reach U.S. territory.
Michel Maeco, who sold his land in Guatemala to pay smugglers $ 35,000 to bring his family of five, including children ages 15, 11 and 7, said he was going home after a 25-day trip. He left Guatemala after learning “in the news” that Biden would allow families to enter the United States.
Maeco’s family was evicted from the streets of Reynosa at 3 a.m. Saturday.
“Supposedly (Biden) was going to help the migrants, but I don’t see anything,” Maeco, 36, said.
A Honduran woman who refused to give her name said she left two months ago because her home was destroyed in Tropical Storm Eta and heard that Biden would “open the border” for 100 days, unaware of the suspension of the president’s 100-day moratorium on deportations, suspended. by courts, it does not cover newcomers. She planned to send her 9-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son alone to live with her aunt in Alabama while she returned to Honduras.
Highlighting the dangers, the Border Patrol said Friday that a nine-year-old Mexican girl died crossing the Grand River near the town of Eagle Pass.
Mexico’s immigrant protection agency, Grupos Beta, convinced many overnight arrivals to be transported to a remote shelter. The crowd in the nearby park had shrunk from a few hundred immigrants days before.
Felicia Rangel, founder of Sidewalk School, which offers educational opportunities to children seeking asylum in Mexico’s border cities, sees what made a miserable immigrant camp like the nearby city of Matamoros, which recently closed.
“If they get a foothold at this lookout, this will become a campground,” he said as a church distributed chicken soup, bread and water to immigrants for breakfast. “They don’t want any other camp in their country.”
Martin Vasquez is one of the immigrants staying for now. The 19-year-old was expelled after separating from his 12-year-old brother, who was considered an unaccompanied child and will surely be released to a grandfather in Florida. He said he was inclined to return to Guatemala, where he worked for a moving company, but wanted to wait a while “to see what the news says.”