Current Events > US border policies have created a volatile logjam in Mexico

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://web.archive.org/web/20230328235006/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/28/us/mexico-border-migrants-shelters.html

A series of tough new border policies have sharply reduced the number of migrants crossing into the United States to their lowest levels since President Biden took office, but the measures have created a combustible bottleneck along Mexicos northern border, with tens of thousands of frustrated migrants languishing in overcrowded shelters from Tijuana to Reynosa.

The situation exploded on Monday when a protest at a government-run migrant detention center in Ciudad Jurez led to a fire that killed at least 40 people. But scenes of overcrowding and desperation have been unfolding in recent weeks along the length of the border as the Biden administration prepares for yet another surge in migration this spring.

Migrants have been waiting in anticipation of a major policy shift, expected in May, when the United States plans to lift a pandemic-era health policy that has allowed U.S. border authorities to swiftly expel many unauthorized migrants crossing the border from Mexico.

Separate new entry restrictions that have already taken effect require most migrants hoping to win U.S. asylum to apply for an appointment at a port of entry. Problems with the new mobile app have left thousands trying in vain for an appointment while stranded in Mexican border towns, where many have already been waiting for months.
After a record number of border apprehensions last year that reached 2.4 million, encounters this year have dipped to about 128,000 a month.

What we have in Tijuana and other Mexican border cities is a bottleneck, said Enrique Lucero, director of the migration services office for the city of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego. Thousands of migrants are waiting for the opportunity to enter the U.S., and more keep arriving.

The citys 30 shelters can accommodate 5,600 people; as many as 15,000 migrants are currently in the city, he said.
The number of people who are able to access the United States is a couple hundred a day, he said, but we have thousands here. Shelters are at full capacity.

Even before Mondays fire, frustration had boiled over earlier this month in Jurez, when hundreds of migrants, mostly from Venezuela, tried to storm their way across the international bridges to reach El Paso, only to clash with U.S. authorities.

Under pressure from the United States, Mexico has agreed to accept the swelling numbers of migrants turned back by American authorities, and to take other measures to help control the number crossing into the United States.
Some local officials on the U.S. side of the border said the Biden administration had created the situation by promising to end the pandemic-related expulsion policy, known as Title 42, which resulted in thousands traveling to the border, and then quickly imposing new restrictions.

Its desperation, said Ricardo Samaniego, the county judge in El Paso, which lies across the border from Ciudad Jurez. You dangle the end of Title of 42 and then you say, Nevermind, and people get stuck.

He said he had learned through his counterparts in Mexico that shelters and detention centers in Jurez were at near capacity and that they were bracing for yet another surge in the days and weeks to come with plans to lift Title 42 on May 11.

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

The 39 lives lost last night in Ciudad Jurez are a horrifying indictment. The systems of enforcement that we have erected to patrol people who migrate are steel hands in velvet gloves, and death is part of the overhead. We are all responsible, Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a faith-based organization, said on Twitter.

With shelters in many border cities full, new arrivals have resorted to sleeping in dingy hotels until their money runs out, and have then ended up on the streets and in abandoned buildings. Tensions have flared, resulting in confrontations with Mexican law enforcement officers, whom migrants have accused of beating, arresting and extorting them. Powerful cartels that control illegal border passage have kidnapped and tortured migrants.
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Last month, the Homeland Security and Justice Departments went further, announcing a new rule, to take effect after Title 42 is lifted on May 11, that would presume migrants are ineligible for asylum if they entered the country unlawfully, and require them to have requested asylum from another country they had passed through before applying in the United States.

However, those who managed to reach the border would be allowed to enter if they met certain criteria and used the mobile app to schedule an appointment.
The app, intended to provide an orderly, streamlined system for processing asylum seekers, has been overburdened with massive demand and plagued with glitches as tens of thousands of migrants have attempted to use it.
At eight ports of entry across the border, 740 migrants each day received appointments last month, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. At the entry point adjacent to Tijuana, 200 appointments were granted each day.

Migrants arrive at the border already in distress after their journey. They have spent all their money to get here, and their hopes are dashed when they cannot manage to get an appointment on the app, said Mr. Lucero, director of the migrant office in Tijuana.

Until the new app was rolled out, U.S. immigration lawyers were able to help especially vulnerable migrants to quickly gain entry into the United States, often escorting them across ports of entry. Now, there is no distinction made between those who are most in danger and others.

A month ago, a 4-month-old baby in need of emergency surgery died because the parents were unable to secure an appointment through the app, said Ms. 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, said Ms. Herrera.

In her seven years running the shelter, she said, the situation had never been more dire.

People who have been tortured, beaten and are running for their lives are stuck here, she said. The most vulnerable people seem to wait the longest.

It's crazy the lack of attention I've seen this getting today. The news alert was the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning and no one seems to want to discuss it. Likely because it happened under Biden. If this happened under Trump, liberals and the entire left would have rightly laid the blame at Trump's doorstep.

You're not wrong

tl;dr?

MonumentValley posted...

tl;dr?

Just because I realize your time with this account is short: dozens of migrants died in a fire in a Mexican detention facility because new restrictions implemented by the Biden administration have led to a bottleneck on the southern side of the border.

MonumentValley posted...

tl;dr?

Biden did what Trump didnt.

Foppe posted...

Biden did what Trump didnt.

oic.

Theres also that fire that happened at that immigrant detention center, tragic

Dark Brandon at it again!

The fire is obviously a tragic event, but (and please correct me if I am wrong) this read like many migrants seeking asylum are heading to the border before they're supposed to, and that is what is causing the bottleneck.

It's like if every single person that was flying out of JFK in the entire month of March all showed up on March 1st instead of waiting for their flight.

Is this the first time NYT has reported on this? I want to say Fox News has been reporting on this in January, maybe earlier but January is when I moved in with my parents.

TBQH I blame Guatemala.

Their border with Mexico is TINY. They should be able to stop people at the border. Their border is probably smaller than the border of CA and OR.

Yet they let the entire south and central america continents flow through their border to Mexico (and then the US) because they think it's funny

So... why isn't Mexico taking them in?

legendary_zell posted...

It's crazy the lack of attention I've seen this getting today. The news alert was the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning and no one seems to want to discuss it. Likely because it happened under Biden. If this happened under Trump, liberals and the entire left would have rightly laid the blame at Trump's doorstep.

Lol?

Trump's America

Trump's Economy

it's rare to see an issue that gets both parties to agree

also admittedly i didnt read the whole article but the topic title seems disingenuous. this makes it seem like it's the US's fault for asylum-seekers overcrowding their own shelters. definitely correct me if im wrong on that

Antifar posted...

Just because I realize your time with this account is short:

Again, I must step in and say that I appreciate your excellent cool-headed backhands even if no one else does.

TaylorHeinicke posted...

also admittedly i didnt read the whole article but the topic title seems disingenuous. this makes it seem like it's the US's fault for asylum-seekers overcrowding their own shelters. definitely correct me if im wrong on that

An handful of guys were told they were being deported, by Mexico, and proceeded to burn the shelter down.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/03/28/mexico-fire-ciudad-juarez-us-border-migrant-facility/11554355002/

Antifar posted...

Just because I realize your time with this account is short: dozens of migrants died in a fire in a Mexican detention facility because new restrictions implemented by the Biden administration have led to a bottleneck on the southern side of the border.

A "logjam" doesn't start the fire.

TaylorHeinicke posted...

it's rare to see an issue that gets both parties to agree

also admittedly i didnt read the whole article but the topic title seems disingenuous. this makes it seem like it's the US's fault for asylum-seekers overcrowding their own shelters. definitely correct me if im wrong on that

it's a 3 fold problem:

1) Someone, most obviously related to the GOP goes and tells all of central and south america "lol, if you cross illegally to america right now they'll give you papers, a house, free money and a blonde wife to have sex with everyday, so come on NOW before this offer expires" every time there is a Democrat in office.

These people believe it and come in droves. Hey, it does sound like a pretty sweet deal. But it's all a ruse, lies, to make the Democrat administration in turn look bad. The same people spreading that misinformation, whoever they are, change the tune to "don't come now, they will skin you alive and piss on your skinless flesh" every time there is a GOP in office.

2) Guatemala is not even trying to stop people coming from their borders. Neither is el salvador. Mexico is as overflowed as we are.

3) Mexico is not really trying to stop them either, they are just stuck with them when we send them back there.

Foppe posted...

Biden did what Trump didnt.

Get people killed?