El Pas, Texas.
The real drama of the American dream is coming to the forefront amid bewilderment and hope.
There is no better definition for the unprecedented events that are told, lived and photographed every day and every night since it started 2021, at various points of the 3,200-kilometer border between Mexico and the United States.
The protagonists of these stories have a lot in common: the vast majority are Hondurans, they decided to leave what little they had behind and leave as a family with children to newborns. They travel exposed to a myriad of situations such as crime, kidnappings, inclement weather, accidents, lack of money and repression to invade a country. which is not his.
LEA: Neither the night nor the detention detain Honduran migrants
Encouraged by the desire to outdo themselves and facing scourges such as lack of employment, or the loss of their belongings after the tropical storms that wreaked havoc in November 2020, and even by the vague idea they paint the caravans, which they will be able to cross Guatemala and Mexico without problems, dozens have embarked on the tortuous journey.
The numbers are hard and cold, but creepy for enormous.
A couple of weeks ago the U.S. Border Patrol put its finger on the sore of a problem involving half the continent.
The amount of detained migrants on the southern border of the United States rose 71% in March compared to the previous month, for a total of 172,331 people – a maximum in 15 years – and with a sharp increase in unaccompanied minors.
And to add to the drama, the number of unaccompanied minors recorded a 100% increase in one month, adding up to more than 18,000 children, according to data from the United States Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Border figures “have been on the rise since April 2020 due to reasons that include violence, natural disasters, food insecurity and poverty in Mexico and the North American Triangle countries Central, “the border patrol said.
But February was no less crude: some 100,000 undocumented immigrants were detained by CBP after entering the border with Mexico, a figure not seen since mid-2019, before the pandemic.
Mexico, meanwhile, accounts for its own dramas.
The National Institute for Migration (INM) reported that between January 1 and March 21, 31,492 migrants crossed the country, an increase of 18% over the same period in 2020.
Those who expel and those who pass.
According to US records, 60% of those arrested at the border in March, a total of 103,900, were immediately deported under the so-called “Title 42”, a measure covered by the covid-19 pandemic that was established under the government of former President Donald Trump and which Biden has kept standing.
This rule allows the United States to immediately expel adults traveling alone and families with children over the age of seven.
By March, 28% of those affected by “Title 42” had already crossed the border earlier and had been deported under the same measure, according to the data.
Data from the Consular and Migration Observatory of Honduras (Conmigho) indicate that just 1,726 Hondurans have been deported from the United States to the country until April 11. Of these, 1,638 are men, 72 women, in addition to 16 minors who went alone. The vast majority of returnees were sent by Mexico, a total of 11,130, of whom 10,070 are men and 1,060 women and 869 minors.
As for the little ones who arrived alone, the figure of 18,890 surpasses the previous record set in May 2019, which was 11,475; and is also well above the 10,620 high reached in June 2014, in the midst of the expansion of the migration crisis that occupied this year in the government of former President Barack Obama.
The Biden Executive has received criticism because many juveniles who have crossed the border have stayed longer than allowed by law in CBP-run detention centers, which are not designed for children. Of the 18,890 juveniles detained alone in March, 15,843 came from the North American Triangle, including 8,366 from Guatemala, 5,907 from Honduras and 1,570 from El Salvador; while 2,452 were Mexicans and another 595, of other nationalities.
Those who are arrested by the Border patrol because they are delivered crossing the Rio Grande or because they are discovered by agents they have a long way to go. Border Patrol agents take their fingerprints from them, record their data and then release them at a clinic where a covid-19 test is to be done.
From there they walk to shelters like Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, where relatives there, claim them and send them even for passages. From there, they have 60 days to report it in front of one Migration Police Office (ICE) or they “face deportation,” warns a document handed to them. This option is the lifeline of many who enter the country as new illegals.