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REYNOSA, Mexico – For nearly three years under the Trump administration, a makeshift camp for migrants from around the world operated in the Mexican town of Matamoros. It was effectively the first refugee camp on the US-Mexico border, filled with people hoping for asylum in the United States but forced to wait in Mexico while their cases were reviewed.
The camp, a painful sign of the human cost of the previous administration’s harsh immigration policies, was razed in March. With the election of President Biden, many of its residents were allowed entry into the United States; others were safely accommodated in shelters in Mexico. His disappearance appeared to signal an important move towards what Mr Biden has promised would be a new, more humane era along the border.
But within weeks, a new camp has sprung up about 90 kilometers further west, in the Mexican town of Reynosa, and this one, aid workers say, is far worse than the one in Matamoros. Already overcrowded, with more than 2,000 people, it is dirty and smelly, lacking the health and sanitation infrastructure that non-profit groups took months to install in Matamoros. Assaults and kidnappings for ransom are commonplace.
The reason: Although Mr. Biden was quick to rescind the Trump administration’s “Stay in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers, he left an emergency health ordinance in place that called in law enforcement officers. border patrol to immediately deport most migrants crossing the border, regardless of whether they try to seek asylum. And on Monday, the US Supreme Court refused to block a court order directing the government to reinstate the “stay in Mexico” policy, increasing the likelihood that other similar camps will reappear along the border.
“Reynosa is Matamoros on steroids,” said Chloe Rastatter, co-founder of Solidarity Engineering, a non-profit group that tries to improve the camp’s infrastructure. “The conditions in the Matamoros camp made it a palace in comparison.”
Every last patch of the plaza near the border bridge to Texas is covered in a jumble of small tents and tarps. The small humanitarian organization has connected a short city water pipe, but it is not enough. There is only one hand washing tank, the faucets of which often dry up. There is not enough drinking water, which is transported by truck. There are also no showers.
Underfunded nonprofits and private donors are struggling to provide everything from toilet paper and disinfectant to food and medicine to migrant families in the camp.
Like the migrants from Matamoros, virtually everyone in Reynosa camp has been deported to Mexico, under an emergency public health measure introduced by President Donald J. Trump, and still in effect, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
“Under Biden, people are always sent back and stranded,” said Charlene D’Cruz, director of Project Corazon, which provides free legal services to vulnerable migrants. “The border is no different.”
The Biden administration said it would comply with a Texas judge’s order to reinstate the “Stay in Mexico” program, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or simply MPP. But it is not clear whether Mexico will agree to formally cooperate with the United States. to accommodate migrants awaiting a decision on their asylum application.
In any case, a majority of migrants crossing the border without permission are immediately deported to Mexico under the pandemic health ordinance, regardless of their asylum status, although a large number of children unaccompanied and many families were allowed to enter.
In their legal challenge to the “stay in Mexico” policy, the states of Texas and Missouri argued that ending the program encouraged human trafficking and would leave states to bear the costs of providing services to a wave. unauthorized immigrants. .
Chad Wolf, who was the acting Secretary of Homeland Security under the Trump administration, applauded the Supreme Court’s ruling, saying the policy of “staying in Mexico” had stemmed a wave of migrants at the border and helped controlling “the unprecedented flow of fraudulent asylum claims. “
The current Department of Homeland Security leadership said it would resume running the program while continuing to “vigorously challenge it” in the court on appeal. “DHS remains committed to building a safe, orderly and humane immigration system that respects our laws and values,” the agency said in a statement.
More and more migrants are arriving in Reynosa every day, most of them dropped off in the city by US border officials who intercepted them after crossing the Rio Grande on a raft.
In recent months, human smugglers have funneled tens of thousands of families to Tamaulipas, the state where Reynosa is located, and sent them across the river to reach McAllen, Texas. At the end of July, the Biden administration began placing migrants on deportation flights if asylum officers stationed at the border found they were unlikely to win their asylum claims, but he did not. was still not clear whether the policy would deter other migrants from coming.
Many migrants from Reynosa have fled violence, deprivation and death threats. After taking several weeks or months of treks on earth to get here, most say they are not inclined to turn back. Thus, they endure leaking tents when it rains, survive on food distributions and wear donated clothing.
Poor hygienic conditions cause people to get sick from preventable diseases. Chickenpox has spread to children.
“We are seeing Covid, gastrointestinal ailments from lack of drinking water and a ton of infections – eye, wound, bladder,” said Andrea Leiner, nurse practitioner at Global Response Management, a nonprofit medical organization who saw 100 patients per day in a tent.
“Our patients are victims of assaults and kidnappings on a regular basis,” said Ms. Leiner.
Last week, Mexican authorities swept the night camp and confiscated gas cylinders used for cooking, stoking rumors the camp was closed. But the lack of accommodation space and widespread crime in Reynosa make the forced displacement of migrants unlikely.
Since the first tents were pitched in April, a semblance of an organized community has started to take shape.
One recent morning, a pastor got out of a van and a crowd quickly gathered around him to join in the prayer.
A sanitation team, overseen by a Guatemalan migrant named Jimmy who hopes to one day make it to Cleveland, tried to clean a row of portable latrines. The volunteers wore latex gloves and squeezed bottles of Comet cleaner.
A kitchen team distributed meals left by churches to people who took turns eating at tables under a white tent. A barber gave the boys crew cuts to repel lice, first wrapping them in a red, white and blue cape. The kids chuckled as they tried to ride a rocking tricycle around the perimeter of the square without knocking anyone over. Everyone was cooking in the scorching summer sun.
Residents were united by trauma, loss and their hopes of reaching places like Alabama, Florida and Oklahoma, to name a few.
Maricela, 63, had entered Texas with her 11 and 14-year-old granddaughters. But after being treated by the US Border Patrol, the girls were separated from their grandmother and placed in federal custody. Maricela was taken back by bus to Mexico because she was not their relative.
Now she was sobbing at a folding plastic table in one of the camp’s makeshift dining rooms.
“I’m the one who takes care of them,” said Maricela, who, like other migrants, only shared her first name for security reasons.
The three men had fled El Salvador because gang leaders tried to recruit the girls as sexual targets, she said. Now she found herself just as powerless to defend them. “I want to be with my granddaughters,” she said.
Other migrants, mostly complete strangers, tried to console her. A woman handed him a Bible with a blue blanket, then quietly slipped away. Robert, 33, patted her shoulders. Glenni, 21, fanned it with a kitchen rag.
Several people said they tried to make a refugee claim to US Border Patrol officers, but officers were not listening. They were told, they said, to just answer the questions and follow the instructions.
Hours after arriving in the United States, the migrants said they were escorted to a bus that brought them back to Mexico.
Lenore, 36, a migrant from Honduras, was certain she would enter. Her husband had crossed the border two years earlier with their daughter, Jacobel, now 9, who has bone cancer, and moved to Oklahoma. She holds up a picture of her sick little girl.
“I can’t understand why they wouldn’t let me pass,” she said, sitting on an aluminum blanket where she slept against the pink backpack that holds everything she owns.
Nearby, inside a tent, Alma, 43, was holding her daughter, Alyson Sofia, 9. They too had been returned. Alma said she had run a food stall in Honduras, but the business had become unsustainable with a high “war tax” imposed by gangs. She and her daughter were twice deported by US authorities, but still hoped to make it to Indianapolis, where family members who had helped pay for their trip were ready to receive them.
“I’m waiting for the United States to allow us to enter,” she said, the bridge to the United States for their temporary residence. “I have faith in God that this will happen.”
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