REYNOSA, Mexico (AP) – In one of Mexico’s best-known cities for organized crime, migrants are expelled from the United States at night, exhausted from the trip, disillusioned by not having the chance to seek asylum and at a crossroads where to go.
Marisela Ramirez, who returned to Reynosa at about 4 am on Thursday, brought her 14-year-old son and left five other children – one just 8 months old – in Guatemala because she could not pay more to smugglers. Now, faced with another agonizing choice, she was inclined to send her son across the border alone to settle with a sister in Missouri, aware that the United States is allowing unaccompanied children to seek asylum.
“We are in the hands of God,” said Ramirez, 30, in an arid park with dying grass and a large lookout in the center that serves as a shelter for migrants.
Lesdny Suyapa Castillo, 35, said in tears that she would return to Honduras with her 8-year-old daughter, who was lying under the gazebo breathing heavily with her eyes partially open and flies circling her face. After not being paid for three months of work as a nurse in Honduras during the pandemic, she wants a stable job in the United States to send an older daughter to medical school. A friend in New York encouraged her to try again.
“I would love to go, but a mother doesn’t want to see her son in that condition,” she said after being dropped off at Reynosa at 10 pm.
The decisions unfold amid what Border Patrol officers say is an unusually high 30-day average of 5,000 daily meetings with migrants. Children traveling alone can stay in the United States to seek asylum, while almost all single adults are expelled to Mexico under pandemic-era rules that deny them the chance to seek humanitarian protection.
Families with children under the age of 7 are being allowed to remain in the United States to seek asylum, according to a Border Patrol official speaking to reporters on Friday on condition of anonymity. Other families – just 300 of the 2,200 on Thursday – are evicted.
Reynosa, a city of 700,000 inhabitants, is where many migrants are returned to after being expelled from the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. Border Patrol said the vast majority of migrants are expelled to Mexico after less than two hours in the United States to limit the spread of COVID-19, which means that many arrive when it is dark.
In normal times, migrants are returned to Mexico under bilateral agreements which limit deportations to daytime hours and longest crossings. But, under the authority of the pandemic, Mexicans and citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras could be expelled to Mexico overnight and in smaller cities.
Border patrol chief Rodney Scott acknowledged in an interview last year that agreements that limit times and locations for deportations are suspended “on paper”, but said that US officials are trying to accommodate the wishes of Mexican authorities. The USA also works in coordination with non-governmental organizations.
“I would never sit here and look at you and say that Tijuana is not dangerous, Juarez is not dangerous, Tamaulipas (state) is not dangerous,” said Scott. “However, much of this is like any other city in the United States. There are certain cities in the United States where there are pockets that are very dangerous and others that are not. “
Tamaulipas, which includes Reynosa, is among the five Mexican states that the US State Department says American citizens should not visit. A travel consultant in the USA says heavily armed criminal groups patrol Reynosa in marked and unmarked vehicles.
More than 100 fathers, mothers and children who were expelled during the night waited in a square outside the Mexican border at sunrise on Saturday, many embittered by the experience and afraid to venture out into the city. Several said they left Central America in the past two months because they were finally able to pay, but information about President Joe Biden’s most favorable immigrant policies contributed to their decisions. Some reported paying smugglers up to $ 10,000 per person to get to the United States.
Michel Maeco, who sold his land in Guatemala to pay smugglers $ 35,000 to bring his family of five, including children aged 15, 11 and 7, said he was returning home after a 25-day trip. He left Guatemala after hearing “on the news” that Biden would allow families to enter the United States.
Maeco’s family was expelled to the streets of Reynosa at 3 am on Saturday.
“Supposedly (Biden) would help migrants, but I don’t see anything,” said Maeco, 36.
A Honduran woman who declined to reveal her name said she left two months ago because her home was destroyed in the tropical Eta storm and that she heard that Biden would “open the border” for 100 days – unaware that the president’s 100-day moratorium on deportations has been suspended by the courts, does not cover newcomers. She planned to send her 9-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son alone to live with her aunt in Alabama, while she returned to Honduras.
Highlighting the dangers, the Border Patrol said on Friday that a 9-year-old Mexican girl died crossing the Rio Grande near the city of Eagle Pass.
Mexico’s migrant protection agency, Beta Groups, convinced many newcomers at night to be taken by bus to a distant shelter. The crowds at the nearby park have dwindled due to a few hundred migrants days before.
Felicia Rangel, founder of Sidewalk School, which offers educational opportunities for children seeking asylum in the cities on the Mexican border, sees the fruits of a squalid immigrant camp as in neighboring Matamoros, which recently closed.
“If they get a foothold in this gazebo, it will become a camp,” she said as a church distributed chicken soup, bread and water to migrants for breakfast. “They don’t want another camp in their country.”
Martin Vasquez is among the migrants who will remain for the time being. The 19-year-old was expelled after being separated from his 12-year-old brother, who was considered an unaccompanied child and will almost certainly be handed over to a grandfather in Florida. He said he would like to go back to Guatemala, where he worked for a removal company, but he wanted to wait a while “to see what the news says.”