The Guardian
‘They said, go on’: migrants escorted back to Mexico without any explanation
In a chaotic situation on the southern border, agents escort migrants and expel them from the United States before they know what’s going on. Joel Duarte Mendez, 25, and his son, Hector, traveled from Honduras to the USA for 12 days to the city of Reynosa. , Texas. They were flown from the Rio Grande Valley to El Paso and later transported by bus and deported to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Photo: Jorge Salgado / The Guardian They were not sure where they were or where they were going when the guards said to them: “Continue”. They walked forward, as instructed, across an unknown bridge and suddenly they were in Mexico. Or, more precisely, back to Mexico. But 800 miles from where they had arrived in America. In a chaotic situation on the southern border, US Customs and Border Protection agents escort migrants over the bridge that connects downtown El Paso, Texas, to the adjacent Mexico city, Ciudad Juárez, and expel them from the United States even before. to know what’s going on. A young mother simply sat on the sidewalk on the Mexican side of the international bridge that connected the two cities and grabbed her breastfeeding son while they snuggled in the cold of late March. The child, no more than 18 months old, wore a pink sweater and wrapped in a blanket, first fed and then slept in her arms, unaware of the moments when her perplexed mother let a tear roll down her face. At one point, the woman covered the girl’s hands with socks to keep her from crying due to the cold wind, even though the mother did not have a coat of her own. A group of migrants quickly deported from the United States under Title 42 of Trump waits on the Mexican side of the Paso del Norte international bridge, between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico on March 10, 2021. Photo: Paul Ratje / AFP / Getty Images The vision is very familiar in Juárez, where dozens of migrants are being unceremoniously expelled from the U.S. daily through a health protocol established by the Trump administration, known as Title 42, where migrants can be expelled to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in US. Some undocumented migrants crossing the US-Mexico border are being admitted to the United States to begin the asylum process, mainly unaccompanied minors and – theoretically – parents with very young children. But the majority of adult migrants and families currently detained in the United States are being expelled, though often not before being taken on a confusing and tortuous journey by authorities on the American side. “I came for Reynosa, I went to the wall and immigration caught us,” explained Joel Duarte Mendez, 25, who had originally traveled from Honduras. Reynosa is at the eastern end of the Texas-Mexico border, 754 miles from the cities of Juárez and El Paso, in the far west. After crossing from Reynosa to Texas, Mendez and his two-year-old son, Hector, were briefly detained. “So they put us on a plane, then they put us on a bus and just threw us here,” he said, pointing to the international bridge that connects El Paso to Ciudad Juárez. I said, ‘this is my chance to go’ and, well, it just wasn’t the case that American border agents lined up the group of people after they got off the bus, took them across the bridge and then “they they said to ‘continue’, ”said Mendez. He clung to Hector, the boy wrapped in a jacket obviously worthy of his father, who was facing the cold in a T-shirt. “I came with my son to give him a better life,” said Mendez. The trip from Honduras to the border took 12 days, he said. He owned a coffee farm and a house in Honduras, but both were destroyed when major hurricanes hit the country last November. With the climate crisis believed to be causing stronger hurricanes, Mendez and Hector have effectively become climate refugees. He used what was left of his money to pay for the trip, he said. “We think they were letting people with children aged five and under enter [the US], so I said, ‘this is my chance to go’ and, well, it just wasn’t the case, ”he told the Guardian, discouraged. Families wait inside a processing center in Ciudad Juárez while being interviewed near the Paso del Norte international bridge. Photo: Jorge Salgado / The Guardian Title 42 was the last major piece of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda that practically closed the US-Mexico border for those undocumented in the pandemic. Joe Biden’s administration rescinded Trump’s so-called Remain in Mexico policy, where migrants were forced to wait in often dangerous border cities in Mexico while their asylum claims from violent countries were processed in the U.S., sometimes taking years. But for those without lawsuits already underway in the U.S., Biden continues to use Title 42 as the pandemic lingers. Many who cross the border now are not even being officially prosecuted as a border patrol or Department of Health and Human Services facility, nor are they being handed over to family members in the states to await a date at the immigration court. They have just been expelled to Mexico. Mendez and the breastfeeding mother were among a group of approximately three dozen migrants, almost all parents with young children, who the Guardian has seen being expelled from the United States in recent days. In Juárez, they were escorted by Mexican authorities to an enclosed area just after the bridge, where journalists were not allowed to interview them. But the tears were visible and many seemed confused. The last mother in the queue had a boy in her arms and another small child walking in front of her, the two children were crying, while the tears started streaming down the woman’s face when she realized she was in Mexico. The group spent more than an hour in the enclosure, before it opened and several families spread out on the streets of Juárez, abandoned to their fate. Those who had contacts in the area asked how to get to the taxis or called someone to pick them up, but others sat on the street, not knowing what to do next. One father, who was not prepared to share his name, explained that since the brief crossing to the United States, they had never been told where they were or where they were going. “We were in the detention center, supposedly waiting for them to contact a relative of ours [in the US] so they could come and get us or send for us, but no, they lied to us, ”he said. The other father said, “It is totally untrue that they let us in with small children.” Four children sit on the streets of Ciudad Juárez after being deported from the United States. Photo: Jorge Salgado / The Guardian There are conflicting reports about why migrants are being transported from one end of the Texas border to the other, ranging from reports of overcrowded emergency shelters on both sides of the border, especially because of restrictions on Covid-19 that shut down many or reduced capacity, to cruel tactics simply to stop migrants with an extra dose of desperation. Nearby, another family: three children huddled around the mother, the father pacing. He confirmed that they had received no information from the agents who expelled them. “Imagine what we went through from Honduras to get here: walking, hitchhiking, feeling hungry, suffering with our children,” he said. “They took our photos, our fingerprints, kept us for three days and then sent us here without signing anything.” Mendez said he thinks things would be different under the Biden government. He has a brother in Charlotte, North Carolina, who was hoping to catch him and Hector when Mendez called him with the bad news. “He scolded me for making the trip,” said Mendez. “I told him I had no other choice, I didn’t want us to die of hunger.” Now he was stuck in Juárez, thousands of miles from home, with no money to return. Nina Lakhani and Valerie Gonzalez contributed reporting