By EFE
May 28, 2024, 2:38 PM EDT
Ciudad Juárez (Mexico).- Despite the increasing deportations and operations of the United States and Mexico, migrants on the border of the Mexican Ciudad Juárez with the American El Paso insist on crossing the Rio Grande (or Grande) border irregularly.
The situation escalated because last week the US authorities expelled 200 migrants who crossed through gate 40 of the border wall and handed them over to the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM) in Ciudad Juárez, where they were warned that they would return them to Chiapas, the state of the southern border of Mexico.
Venezuelan Marco Galindo considered restarting his route “very frustrating.”
“It’s as if it were a failure, everyone is looking for the dream of going to the United States and since we are here, that war they wage on us from Tapachula (city on the southern border) makes life impossible. Those from Immigration, the National Guard, are chasing us everywhere,” Galindo told EFE.
The South American pointed out that among those stranded in the Rio Grande there is now fear about whether to cross or not, because while in the United States the Texas National Guard beats them back, in Mexico the INM agents would return them to Chiapas on a bus tied hands
He also said that many of them have been in Juárez for more than five months, where in addition to obtaining resources they have to face organized crime, and every day they travel about 10 kilometers along the border to see where to pass.
“Looking for the solution of entering, but now with the fact that I have entered three times and they have kicked me out three times (I don’t know). But thank God they haven’t sent me to ‘Tapachula, they took me out right there,” he said.
A reflection of more restrictions
What is happening in Ciudad Juárez reflects the growing restrictions at the United States border, where on May 9 the Government of Joe Biden enacted a rule that instructs immigration agents to prohibit people considered a “risk to public safety or national” request asylum.
Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed in late April “to work together to immediately implement concrete measures to significantly reduce irregular border crossings while protecting human rights.”
In the first quarter of 2024 alone, irregular migration intercepted by the Mexican Government grew by nearly 200% annually to almost 360,000 people.
José Luna Ochoa, a migrant from Venezuela who stationed himself on the Rio Grande waiting to cross, attributed the operations to the fact that this year the elections in the United States and Mexico coincide.
“As the elections are coming, the laws for immigrants have become more strict, to be able to cross there, we are going to cross as we can in a good way and with the will of God,” he said.
He added that, in addition to the climate, they deal with the insecurity that Mexico represents, both due to persecution by immigration authorities and kidnappings by organized crime.
“Yes, it is worth it, we want to give our children a better future, since in our country there is no education, there is no security, there is no health, we are in a dictatorship, a salary is 7 dollars a month and 2 dollars is worth a kilo of flour to make some arepas,” said the migrant.
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