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In Mexican border camps, families ‘wait for US doors to open’ | Migration Issues

Reynosa, Mexico – When * Albert, 36, and his 10-year-old son arrived at the United States border last week, they hoped that their one-month trip with smugglers from Honduras would end in a reunion with their Florida relatives ready to receive them.

But after crossing the Rio Grande River into Texas, border police in the United States picked up Albert and his son and took them across a bridge to Mexico and across.

“I lost everything on the way here, I have nowhere to go,” said Albert, who asked Al Jazeera not to use his real name for fear of being identified by terrorists who kidnap people at the US-Mexico border.

While living in the city of Reynosa on the border with Mexico – home to about one million people – Albert saw a place full of tents. Hundreds of families have set up camp here, closed by US border closures for asylum seekers since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic.

“She gave me a tent to sleep in,” he said, standing in the mud camp. “Last night everything was wet and I started to cry.”

‘No place here’

Throughout Reynosa, hundreds of Central American or Haitians live in camps, dormitories, or dormitories, awaiting the end of the term. coronavirus-related infections which allows the US to repatriate many asylum seekers along the southern border with Mexico.

Production a human problem six months ago – the Reynosa camp began construction in late June – when the movement of people did not stop.

The number of arrivals in the southern US border is relatively low unseen since the beginning of the 21st century, said Adam Isacson, who oversees border control at the Washington Office in Latin America.

The blast is largely driven by people fleeing countries in Central America and Haiti in the midst of many difficulties, Isacson told Al Jazeera, while others came from South America. The growing financial crisis due to COVID-19 and the release of epidemics have encouraged migration in recent months.

But epidemic restrictions that hinder many U.S. requests remain – and Mexico’s border cities are filling up.

Reynosa Camp, Mexico, began construction in late June [Dylan Baddour/Al Jazeera]

“There is no place for all these people to go,” said Felicia Rangel, the agency’s volunteer director. Sidewalk School for Asylum Seekers, an organization that has educated children across the Texas border since late 2019.

“Yet buses and vans continue to come every day,” Rangel told Al Jazeera in an interview in his office across the Reynosa camp.

Chapter 42

In 2019, then-President Donald Trump launched a program called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as “Stay in Mexico”.

The law, widely criticized, forced refugees to wait in Mexico while their claims were heard in US courts. Tens of thousands were sent to Mexico from the US, where they were arrested abundant tent on the US border in Matamoros, Mexico, and faced daily threats of violence, rape and other violations of human rights.

Trump last year re-established what is known as Chapter 42, a point that cited the spread of COVID-19 to prevent many asylum seekers from entering the country.

When U.S. President Joe Biden removed the children from the 42nd deportation, he left out the principles of unmarried adults and families reaching the border, saying it was necessary to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Refugee security guards at the Reynosa camp say they are facing a host of dangers, including threats of violence [Dylan Baddour/Al Jazeera]

But Gladis Molina, executive director of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights in Chicago, said Chapter 42 was “not a healthy issue, and a deterrent to refugees”. Molina, who visited the Reynosa camp in November, said: “This is a way to prevent migration.”

It remains in place even with the removal of plague bills and the removal of charges opening of US borders tourist attractions last month. Molina said Biden officials did not give time to end the use of Article 42.

“The point must end,” Molina told Al Jazeera. “It’s our first story.”

‘Stay in Mexico’ resumes

But even after the repeal of Chapter 42, some Trump administration rules continue to make travel to the US difficult.

Thursday, Mexico he announced had agreed with Washington to reinstate the MPP, a law that would require refugees to wait several months in Mexico for their cases to be settled in the US. Although Biden tried to repeal the ordinance, a Texas court ordered it to be reinstated in August.

The United States Department of Homeland Security says the program will resume on December 6, with Mexico evacuations taking place over seven miles from California, Arizona and Texas, when the MPP will resume operations.

This means that the problems that drive the border problems continue.

At the site of Reynosa, residents of the camp say that waiting is more difficult because of the threat of disease and crime, among them. other dangers.

One man said he was held by his 7-year-old son for two months. He also said that the hat-off men beat him up and sent videos of his family’s revolt to demand a $ 10,000 ransom from them. She and her son were released after receiving the payment, she said.

He said: “For two months we did not see the sun. “The truth is I don’t know how much of this I can take.”

Violence threats

The threatening violence has caused many parents to send their children across the bridge without an escort because they do not follow chapter 42 on their own. Once in the US, they are taken into custody by US officials and the families hope to reunite with relatives already in the country.

A family at the Reynosa camp reported that their 15-year-old son was beaten by cartel members while his 17-year-old daughter was threatened with rape. When the men came and tried to drag the girl out of the family tent one night, the parents said they decided to send them across the US border to try to find their grandmother in Georgia.

“Our only hope is that we will be with them again,” she said, standing outside a tent with her husband and her nine-year-old son in her care.

Thousands of children have also been released from the camp in recent months, according to activists working in Reynosa. In the meantime, churches and charities are helping many people. human needs, including incurable diseases.

Lourdes Gonzalez (right) and Suyapa Rosa (center) surround the Reynosa camp [Dylan Baddour/Al Jazeera]

Lourdes Gonzalez, Reynosa’s longtime representative of the poor, told Al Jazeera that he traveled to the camp to search for patients every day. As she slipped through the laundry lines recently, people surrounded her to interrogate her.

“This happens every time we come. All the patients are coming,” said Gonzalez, a member of Angry Tias and Abuelas (Angry Aunts and Grandmothers), a civil rights group that supports people in the Rio Grande Valley.

As Gonzales stood out in the open between the adjoining tents, one pregnant woman said she needed medication; an elderly woman complained that she did not have antidepressants; one girl reported having a hernia; and one mother claimed that her son had been raped.

There is still hope

Suyapa Rosa, a 36-year-old doctor, was with Gonzalez when she visited the camp. Rosa once worked at a hospital in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, but fled the scene after being threatened by gang members who threatened to kill her if she did not leave.

They crossed the Rio Grande with a large group and boarded a bus back to Reynosa with helpers at the US border in September. He spent two weeks in the camp before moving to work at a nearby hospital protected by Angry Tias and Abuelas.

“This is very bad here,” he said as he wrote about the community hospital in the camp.

But despite the hardships in the Reynosa camp, many are holding on to hope about one day finding security in the US.

“I feel like a loser, as if my life had changed dramatically,” said a 40-year-old former schoolteacher, who did not name Al Jazeera. He said he crossed the Rio Grande River to the US last month with his 14-year-old daughter, but was sent back to Mexico.

“We expect the U.S. doors to open,” he said. “Miracles happen.”




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