Over the weekend, Border Patrol agents in the El Paso sector received an average of more than 1,100 people a day, the agency reported. Upon arrival in the United States, the migrants are released by the Border Patrol on the streets of El Paso, Texas, where some settle on donated mattresses or in tents because the shelters are saturated, hundreds more are transferred in buses to New York
Text and Photos: Blanca Carmona | The truth and Cincy Ramirez | El Paso Matters
Braving the flow of the Rio Grande, a wave of migrants, mostly Venezuelans, have crossed in groups of up to 300 people into the United States through the Ciudad Juárez-El Paso border, to surrender to Border Patrol agents.
The massive crossing of people began to register on Saturday, September 10, just the day that extension came into effect of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrants from Venezuela, with which they are protected from deportation and can obtain work permits.
Dozens of migrants who crossed the Rio Grande through Ciudad Juárez wait in line to surrender to Border Patrol in the El Paso, Texas, sector on Monday, September 12. Photography: Rey R. Jauregui
Over the weekend, Border Patrol agents in the El Paso sector received an average of more than 1,100 people a day, the agency reported.
The growing wave of migrants spreading through this binational community alerted the authorities, institutions, and civil groups that serve people on both sides of the border who move to the region with the intention of crossing into the United States.
Border Patrol officials in the El Paso sector confirmed that they have experienced an increase in migrants and a shift towards a demographic group, basically these people are no longer subject to removal under Title 42, a measure implemented by the US government to immediately deport migrants arguing that they seek to stop the spread of Covid-19.
U.S. authorities did not specify which demographic is not subject to immediate removal, but over the weekend most of the migrants who crossed were Venezuelan.
The situation embarrassed authorities in the city of El Paso, where nearly a thousand migrants have been released onto the streets since last week, officials with the El Paso Sector of the El Paso Matters Border Patrol confirmed Monday. Among them was a group of 300 launched on Saturday, with many more expected in the coming days.
Meanwhile, 25 charter buses carrying 1,135 migrants have been dispatched to New York City since Aug. 23 by the El Paso City-County Office of Emergency Management, officials said, adding they will continue to transport migrants for as long as necessary.
Also read: Plan International: Venezuela’s migration crisis will worsen in the coming months
The Border Patrol works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find space in nonprofit shelters when its El Paso Central Processing Center is full. The agencies release the migrants onto the streets when those shelters are full, since by legal provisions most migrants cannot be detained for more than 72 hours.
Some of the freed migrants have taken up residence on the streets of El Paso with makeshift tents and mattresses near the Greyhound bus station.
Miguel Ángel, 24, who left behind his wife and two children aged three and five in Venezuela, told El Paso Matters that although he was cold and uncomfortable, spending a few nights on the streets of El Paso did not compare to his month-long trip.
“All the time we have been under the mantle of God,” he said as he sat on a folding beach chair in front of the bus station. “When you’ve waded through jungles and mountains, waded through waist-deep mud, and crossed rivers that nearly drowned you, this is nothing.”
Many migrants have families and funds to reach other cities in the country, but the influx of Venezuelan migrants like Miguel Ángel, who have neither, has overwhelmed services throughout the city.
A National Guard agent observes from Ciudad Juárez the line of migrants waiting next to the border wall to surrender to the Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas. Photography: Rey R. Jauregui
Shelters in El Paso, including Casa Annunciation, the Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army, have been full, pushing the city to open a processing center in a municipal building.
El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez said the new wave of migrants “really threw things into a different stratosphere.” He reported that the City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is asking the federal government for faster reimbursements for expenses related to housing, processing and transporting migrants.
Also read: Mexico pushes Venezuelans to clandestine routes with its visa requirements
In turn, the mayor of El Paso, Oscar Leeser, pointed out that the migrants are not arriving in El Paso, but rather in the United States through the city. “It is a federal issue. We are assisting the federal government in this program.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen from today to tomorrow,” Leeser continued. “We have to adapt to the situation day in and day out… and we will continue to work to make sure people are treated with dignity and respect.”
Efforts seem insufficient in the face of the new massive arrival of migrants in this region. This Monday morning a new group crossing of migrants was registered and most of them said they came from Venezuela.
“We left because of the situation in the country… because there was no work, as young people we want to get ahead,” he told The truth a man who, along with four other people, under the fence that protects the Rio Grande and crossed it without much problem, since very little water currently carries that flow.
Before turning himself in to a Border Patrol agent who was waiting for him at the top of the protection wall of the Rio Grande, called the Rio Grandes on the US side, the migrant managed to say that he had been traveling for 18 days and is coming from Táchira, Venezuela, a region located to the west of that country, in the Andes region.
The migrants arrived at the river from the west side of Ciudad Juárez, carrying backpacks on their backs. Once on the US side, everyone lined up waiting to be served by Border Patrol agents, who set up a processing center under a bridge, next to the metal wall, where they take your data and release it.
Personnel from the National Migration Institute (INM) explained that people from Venezuela enter Mexico legally, with a tourist visa and some of them by air.
Given the massive arrival of migrants at the border, elements of the National Guard and the INM went this Monday, September 12, to the section of the Rio Grande through which the migrants were entering the United States, but they were only observing the process.
Unlike the behavior shown this Monday by the Mexican federal personnel, on September 10, the Municipal Public Security agents secured 65 migrants from Venezuela who were near the edge of the Rio Grande in order to cross into the United States, as well The agency reported in a press release, highlighting that the action was part of “Operation Mirror” that is carried out in coordination with Border Patrol agents.
This September 10, the extension of the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) for Venezuelans came into force.
In July 2022, United States President Joe Biden approved extending TPS for 18 months starting on September 10. This program allows Venezuelans to stay and work in the United States until March 2024. The protection for Venezuelans was first announced in March 2021 and was set to expire in September 2022.
Also read: Preventing suicides in Venezuelan migrants also implies socioeconomic assistance
Post Views:
371
