Some 600 Venezuelans leave camp in Juárez due to cold

Jesús Estrada and Rubén Villalpando, Mireya Cuéllar

Correspondents, and La Jornada Baja California

Newspaper La Jornada
Friday, November 18, 2022, p. 17

Some 600 Venezuelan migrants left the camp they set up on the banks of the Rio Grande, in front of the border wall that divides Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, from El Paso, Texas, and turned themselves in to the United States Border Patrol, so as not to suffer further Low temperatures as a result of cold front number 9, after a US judge ordered the Joe Biden government to stop applying the legislation known as Title 42, which implies the automatic deportation of undocumented immigrants who request refuge.

According to Santiago González, director of Human Rights of Juárez, the Venezuelans abandoned 113 tents, clothes, shoes and other belongings on Wednesday night, which yesterday were removed in an operation implemented by personnel from the Municipal Public Services, the State Population Council and agents of the National Institute of Migration (INM) so as not to create a source of infection or a risk of fire.

He stated that Mayor Cruz Pérez ordered respect the human rights of people in a situation of mobility, as well as their right to migration, which is why we are only removing the tents that were abandoned.

He assured that the Venezuelans who remain on board the Bravo have at their disposal the humanitarian aid that is offered in the shelters (in Ciudad Juárez), where there are all the conditions of infrastructure, spaces, services and supplies to have a dignified migration.

González also invited foreigners to go to the job bank of the municipal Office of Attention to Migrants, through which 60 people from Venezuela have obtained formal jobs.

Meanwhile, administrators of the Casa del Migrante in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, reported that at the moment, hundreds of migrants from Chiapas and Guerrero, as well as foreigners, are waiting outside for a response to their requests for humanitarian asylum from the United States government, since the local shelters are saturated.

In this context, the INM installed a checkpoint at the San Ysidro international crossing, a few meters from the entrance to US territory, as part of a pilot plan that will end on January 15, to detect undocumented immigrants trying to enter to the neighboring country by car, especially human traffickers and russiansannounced the mayor of Tijuana, Baja California, Monserrat Caballero.