US border policies have created an unstable impasse in Mexico

A series of tough new border policies have drastically reduced the number of migrants crossing the US to the lowest levels since the days of the president Joe Biden took office, but the measures created a fuel bottleneck along Mexico’s northern border, with tens of thousands of frustrated migrants languishing in crowded shelters from Tijuana to Reynosa.

Matters escalated on Monday when a protest at a government-run migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez sparked a fire that killed at least 40 people.

But scenes of overcrowding and despair have unfolded along the border in recent weeks as the Biden administration prepares for a new increase migration this spring.

Migrants have been waiting for a major policy shift, expected in May, when the US plans to roll back a pandemic-era health policy that has allowed US border authorities to quickly deport many migrants crossing illegally from Mexico.

New entry restrictions that have already gone into effect require most immigrants hoping to gain asylum in the United States to make an appointment at a port of entry.

The problems with the new mobile app they left thousands trying unsuccessfully to get an appointment while stuck in Mexican border towns, where many had been waiting for months.

“What we have in Tijuana and other Mexican border cities is a bottleneck,” said Enrique Lucero, director of the immigration services bureau for the city of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.

“Thousands of migrants await the opportunity to enter the United States and more continue to arrive.”

The city’s 30 shelters have a capacity of 5,600 people; Until 15,000 migrants they are currently in town, he said.

“The number of people who can enter the United States is two hundred a day,” he said, “but we have thousands here. The shelters are full.”

Even before Monday’s fire, frustration had boiled over earlier this month in Juárez when hundreds of migrants, mostly from Venezuelaattempted to forcibly cross international bridges to reach El Paso, Texas, only to run afoul of US authorities.

Under US pressure, Mexico has agreed to accept the growing number of migrants being repatriated by US authorities and to take other steps to help control the number of people entering the US.

Some local officials on the US side of the border said the Biden administration had created the situation with promises finish to the pandemic-related removal policy, known as Title 42, which has led to thousands of people traveling to the border, only to quickly impose new restrictions.

“It’s desperation,” said Ricardo Samaniego, a judge in El Paso County, located across the border from Ciudad Juárez.

“You hang up the end of title 42 and then you say, ‘It doesn’t matter’ and people freeze.”

He said he learned through his counterparts in Mexico that the shelters and detention centers in Juárez were nearly full and that they were preparing for a new surge in the coming days and weeks with plans to lift Title 42 on the 11th May.

Immigrant advocates have been warning for months that the situation was becoming explosive.

“The 39 lives lost last night in Ciudad Juárez are a horrific indictment. The law enforcement systems we have erected to police migrating people are hands of steel in velvet gloves, and death is part of the overload. We are all responsible”, Dylan Corbett , executive director of the Border Institute of Hopea religious organization.

With shelters in many border towns full, the new arrivals resorted to sleeping in seedy hotels until they ran out of money, and then ended up on the streets and in abandoned buildings.

Tensions flared, sparking clashes with Mexican law enforcement, who the migrants accused of beating, detaining and extorting money from them.

THE powerful cartels who control illegal passage across the border have kidnapped and tortured migrants.

Every day, disheveled migrant families arrive at Pro Amore Dei, a Catholic shelter in Tijuana, the largest city on the Mexican side, begging for a place to rest their heads.

“Every day I reject at least 10 families with children,” explains Leticia Herrera, director of the centre, where entire families already share a bed.

“God help us, we’ve already exceeded our capacity,” he said of the facility, which seats 250.

The same goes for another Tijuana shelter, Juventud 2000, where nearly 200 immigrant families sleep in orange, green, and blue tents set up in a converted warehouse.

“We went from being half empty last year to having to turn people away,” explains José María García, the founder.

“Now we have to do it consistently, day after day.”

While Mexican migrant shelters are full, there has been a significant drop in the number of migrants on the U.S. side of the border.

“The number of people in our care has been halved since the beginning of the year,” said Kate Clark, director of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

With the intention of curbing the crossings, the Biden administration resorted to more restrictive measures.

Expanded the use of Title 42 to fend off a new wave of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuelawhile instituting a program that allowed citizens of those countries to apply for parole to enter the United States from their home countries, if they had a financial sponsor.

Since the launch of that program, illegal crossings have plummeted overall. After a record number of border arrests last year, which reached 2.4 million, this year encounters have dwindled to around 128,000 a month.

Last month, the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice went further and announced a new rule, which will take effect following the abolition of Title 42 on May 11, under which immigrants will be deemed ineligible for the asylum if they entered the country illegally, and will need to have applied for asylum in another country through which they passed before applying to the United States.

However, those who made it to the border would be allowed in if they met certain criteria and used the mobile app to make an appointment.

The app, intended to provide an orderly and streamlined system for processing asylum applications, was overflowed from the massive and flawed lawsuit when tens of thousands of migrants tried to use it.

According to data from the United States Customs and Border Protection, last month 740 immigrants a day at eight ports of border entry.

At the adjacent entry point in Tijuana, 200 appointments were made per day.

“Migrants arrive at the border already distraught after the journey. They have spent all their money to get here and their hopes are dashed when they don’t get an appointment on the application,” said Lucero, director of the Tijuana migrant office.

Until the new app goes live, US immigration attorneys could help particularly vulnerable migrants enter the US quickly, often by escorting them through ports of entry.

Now, there is no distinction between who is most in danger and the others.

A month ago, a 4-month-old baby who needed urgent surgery died because the parents couldn’t get an appointment through the app, said Herrera, of the Pro Amore Dei shelter in Tijuana.

“Last year, the family would have been taken across the border and the baby would be alive now,” Herrera said.

In the seven years he’s been running the shelter, things have never been like this so serious.

“People who have been tortured, beaten and running for their lives are trapped here,” he said.

“The most vulnerable people are those who seem to be waiting the longest.”

In the Mexican city of Piedras Negras, on the border with Eagle Pass (Texas), emotions have become particularly raw.

Last year, immigrants arriving at First Baptist Church, a two-story facility where people sleep on tattered mattresses, often on the floor, usually stayed a day or two before entering the United States.

But Israel Rodríguez, a pastor who runs the shelter, said migrants are now staying longer.

There were about 160 people crammed into the shelter on Tuesday, most of them families.

“They’re all in limbo. They come here hoping to cross, but the application they’re asked for doesn’t work,” Rodríguez said.

“So they stay, some for months, and have nowhere to go.”

c.2023 The New York Times Society