MISSION, Texas – A few hundred meters from the green and murky waters of the Rio Grande River, a handwritten plaque tucked inside a plastic cover by the Department of Homeland Security is a duct glued to the trunk of a tree.
It says “Asylum” – the Spanish word for asylum.
It is written in large letters on a piece of cardboard above an arrow indicating the direction of the Port of Entry of Anzalduas in Mission, Texas and the guideline “Camine asi al puente, 3 km” or, approximately, “Walk here until the bridge . “
“They used to have masks [stuffed inside], ”Deputy Police Officer Ray Reyna, of the Hidalgo County Constable’s Office, 3, told The Post, adding that the plaque and the like were hung“ recently ”in the middle of the move to the Biden administration.
The plaques were found by The Post on Thursday night during a walk along with the Office of Condestável in the undergrowth behind Parque Anzalduas where migrants walk after crossing the Rio Grande on rafts from Reynosa, Mexico. Evidence of their presence, including a soggy checkered blanket, water bottles and a children’s face mask emblazoned with blue and pink fish, spread out over the worn paths they take through the river brush.
Local police believed the signs were left by US Border Patrol agents because they are sealed with sleeves owned by DHS – although Customs and Border Protection deny that their agents placed them there.
The signs are further evidence of President Biden’s more inviting approach to immigration, which has caused a wave of border crossings. DHS officials said it was on track to be the biggest in two decades, after a series of strict immigration policies established by former President Donald Trump were reversed.
“They are coming with the mentality that they are going to stay here … It is very different, we are not used to it,” said Deputy Ray Trevino, who took the Post for a walk while working Operation Stonegarden, a federal grant program that finances local law enforcement units to assist with border security measures.
“As soon as Trump left and Biden came in, everyone started to come in too.”
Under Trump, Trevino said he would see a handful of migrants every night, “a trio here or there, a group of five, a group of seven” who were deliberately trying to hide and be smuggled. But today, at least 100 migrants are coming to the area almost every night, sometimes up to 300 in the course of just a few hours, who promptly surrender to the authorities and “want to be found,” said Trevino.
“As of now, all of these are family groups, they are volunteers. They are not here to be picked up, they are here to surrender, they are asking for asylum ”, explained Trevino, who has nine years of service.
“We are just guiding them, showing them the way.”
Sgt. Officer Roger Rich said that they patrol the bush “mainly for security reasons” and recently the area has been dubbed the “family group area” due to the large number of children and parents arriving.
“The problem is that it gets dark and you turn around,” explained Rich.
“We’ve already had people dying here, getting lost and dying.”
During the trip, The Post found a group of 11 migrants, including five adults, five children and a 17-year-old girl, who was left in a white truck on the Mexican side of Rio Grande and sent on a raft.
Olinda Marilin Portillo Mazariegos was out of breath after climbing the dam and crossing the algarobas with her 6-year-old daughter, Silvia Olinda Marilín López Portillo, after her 32-day long journey from Guatemala.
“My country is not the place to be, children are murdered and raped at night,” explained Mazariegos, who paid at least $ 8,000 for the ticket and previously worked as a psychologist.
She said a child was raped in her hometown, where gangs run wild, but when she reported the culprit, she was “threatened”, which prompted her to leave.
“There is no law in my country,” said the mother, carrying nothing but the clothes on her body, while shaking her daughter’s hand, explaining her plans to join a friend in New Orleans and find work as a cleaner or cook until she could transfer your professional certifications to the United States.
“I’m not scared anymore. I used to be very scared, but now I’m not. ”
Jhosselyn Rojas Solano, 25, traveled nearly 4,000 miles from Bolivia over two weeks by bus and on foot with his five-year-old son, Matías Vegamonte Rojas, to escape domestic violence.
“He has been bothering me for seven years, threatening me because I asked him for child support because he was my husband, and I needed financial support for my son,” explained Solano while crying softly.
“He threatened me, hit me and I denounced it, and they did nothing there,” continued the mother while Matías hugged his leg.
“And this last time he threatened me that if I continued to seek child support he would harm me and my son and that he would take my other son. That’s why I decided to come here. “
Solano, who worked as a hairdresser at home, described the harrowing journey he undertook to find security and the difficulties he faced in making the long journey alone with a small child.
“The climate, the duration of the trip, the pressure and the fear that something will happen during the trip. You hear about so many things happening, about the fear I had for my son, and there were days when we were hungry, all these things, it was difficult ”, said the mother, adding that there were days when she had to carry her child as she walked for miles.
Solano hopes to join his uncle in Virginia, where he will be able to start a new life and support his children.
“I came because I couldn’t take it there anymore. I hope that we have the possibility of establishing ourselves there, in the United States. “
In fiscal year 2021, there was a huge increase in “family units” entering the Rio Grande Valley specifically, accounting for 42% of all parents and children who crossed the southwest border, surpassing the eight other sectors of the CBP, show the data .
In fiscal year 2020, 8,129 parents and children entered Rio Grande and in fiscal year 2021, that number more than doubled to 16,583 – an increase of 104%, the data show. In comparison, other hot spots in Del Rio and El Paso had just 6,438 and 5,798 families, respectively.
The biggest jump in southern Texas is likely due to a law passed in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which is on the other side of the Rio Grande, according to local media and aid groups.
It prevents the state from accepting migrants traveling with young children who would normally be expelled from the U.S. under Title 42, a rule imposed last year by Trump that allowed the CBP to deport migrants immediately to stem the spread of COVID-19.
“Children under the age of six cannot be sent back to Mexico. The United States has a policy that the border is closed, they have not changed that, but the Border Patrol cannot return any child under the age of six to Mexico and therefore they are forced to release it in the United States. … [that’s] why we are seeing so many families, ”said Sister Norma Pimentel, who runs the Catholic Charities Respite Center in Downtown McAllen, where 200 to 600 migrant families were cared for every day during the latest increase.
“They found that if they had a child aged six or less, they would not be sent back. So, they are really waiting for the Border Patrol to see them … as soon as they are processed, the border patrol calls me and tells me that they have a group to leave and it happens all day, from very early in the morning until very late. “
Local CBP officials have not confirmed whether they are being forced to accept possible expulsions of Title 42 because of the new Mexican law and forwarded the Post to their national office, which did not return a request for comment.
Pimentel, who has worked with migrants since the 1980s, said the families she serves are not bad people, they are just trying to escape a bad situation.
“The situation in their country is difficult. It’s not safe. They are afraid to be there. They fear for their children and find every opportunity they can to try to bring themselves to this country with the hope that they will be safer here, ”explained the nun.
“Your children can be easily recruited [by gangs]kidnapped, killed, they have a harder time working because cartels or gangs make it impossible. There are no jobs available, if they work, they steal their money, they coerce them and so that’s the kind of life they see there and so they just prefer to go north in the hope of finding a safer place to be. ”