‘Everyone says something different’: migrants arrive misinformed at the US-Mexico border
An estimated 11,500 to 15,000 migrants are waiting in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros for a chance to enter the US. Title 42 remains in place, but some are entering
Throngs of Haitians congregate outside migrant shelters in the Mexican border city of Reynosa. Some line up to put their names on a waiting list for entry into the Senda de Vida shelters, which were at capacity. Others hoped to add their names to another list, which was supposedly for entry into the United States. Nobody knew how the list for U.S. entry worked or whether it even existed. Misinformation ruled the scene.
“Everyone says something different,” said a Haitian migrant identifying himself as Willy, who was waiting entry to one of the Senda de Vida shelters with his wife and four children. “We’re sleeping in the street,” he said.
Many of the migrants marooned along the U.S.-Mexico border remain there under Title 42, a health measure from the pandemic allowing for the rapid expulsion of people illegally entering the United States back to Mexico. It was supposed to expire May 23, but a federal judge ordered the Biden administration keep it in place.
But the belief among migrants that there was a list for getting exemptions from Title 42 wasn’t based in wishful thinking: a small, but steady stream of migrants in cities such as Reynosa cross the border under an exception known as humanitarian parole. Such cases are granted for hardships such as illness or family circumstances, according to activists working with migrants.
The prevalence of humanitarian parole comes as evaluations of Title 42 show it being applied somewhat less robustly than during previous months. An analysis by the Washington Examiner found “47% of the migrants the Border Patrol apprehended in April, 94,658 of the 201,800, were immediately turned back at the border under Title 42,” according to information from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). “In the final three full months of the Trump administration, 84% were expelled under the same policy,” Examiner reporter Anna Giaritelli wrote. Victor Manjarrez Jr., associate director for the University of Texas Center for Law and Human Behavior in El Paso and a former senior Border Patrol agent, told the Examiner:
“You look at the categories of people it has been applied to recently, and it is mostly single adults. Title 42 initially was applied to just about every nationality, but now it is down [to] Mexican, Guatemalan, and other few select countries. The administration has taken steps over the last several months to effectively make the use of Title 42 insignificant.”
THERE’S NO LIST, BUT PEOPLE ARE ENTERING THE US
Inside the Senda de Vida shelter, founder and director Pastor Héctor Silva de Luna adamantly stated: “There is no list. … People are wrong because they think there’s a list. The list we have is so people can enter the (shelter) not for going to the United States.”
Instead, he said, some migrants hire U.S. lawyers – or receive pro bono representation – who present their paperwork to U.S. immigration officials. Each morning, Pastor Silva de Luna receives a list of migrants, who have been approved for admittance that day. He showed a team of reporters the names arriving from earlier in the morning via WhatsApp before pocketing his phone and commenting. “The first thing lawyers say is: ‘pastor, please, don’t be exposing my clients to the press.’”
The approved migrants undergo Covid-19 testing at the shelter, then board a school bus, which Pastor Silva de Luna drives to the port of entry. There, he leads the migrants over the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge, where he turns the migrants over to U.S. officials. He estimates 120 people receive humanitarian parole daily at the port of entry between Reynosa and Hidalgo, Texas, though the numbers vary.
Inside the Senda de Vida shelter, migrants knew how they needed to hire lawyers – but most lacked the funds. “If I had money, I’d pay a lawyer and get on the list,” said a 53-year-old Honduran migrant who had spent 10 months in the shelter. “You wait one or two weeks, then they call you from a list.” He said lawyers charge $1,500 for single migrants and $2,000 for couples. When asked how he would get on the list without a lawyer, he responded in English, “Never. Believe me, never.”
SICK NOTES
A similar scene of waiting played out in Matamoros, 55 miles east of Reynosa and opposite Brownsville, Texas. Dozens of Haitians waited outside an unassuming house to see lawyers, in an effort to prepare their paperwork. Many were toting sick notes, which they hoped would help their cases for Title 42 exemptions.
An official with the Red Cross in Matamoros said many migrants seek medical revisions, hoping to receive confirmation of chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension – some even asked for pregnancy tests, which came back negative.
The Red Cross official spoke near the border crossing and in front of a former camp for asylum-seekers in the Migrant Protection Protocols program – who lived in tents on a floodplain next to the Rio Grande until the Biden administration ended the Migrant Protection Protocols program (MPP) and brought its participants into the United States in the spring of 2021. (A federal judge ordered MPP reinstated last year and the Red Cross official says approximately 50 program participants are returned to Matamoros daily, then bused onward to Monterrey, where they await their appointments in U.S. courts.)
The Red Cross official attended to the camp, where insalubrious conditions were common and illness spread easily. He also tended to people harmed by drug cartels – including migrants who tried crossing the river without first paying a fee of $500. In some cases, the people not paying were given tablazos, beatings on the backside meted out by cartel thugs. Some were killed, however, with their bodies dumped in the river as a warning to others, he said.
IMPROVED SECURITY SITUATION FOR MIGRANTS?
People working with migrants put the migrant population of Matamoros somewhere between 4,500 to 5,000 migrants and between 7,000 to 10,000 in Reynosa – with Haitians comprising the largest nationality. Numbers increased during the spring, according to staff at two migrant shelters, one of whom said, “When Title 42 was supposed to be lifted, people thought the border would be open.”
Many of the Haitians had left the island long before arriving at the border – often spending years in Brazil or Chile, but moved on after work became scarce and visas unavailable. Most Haitians won’t risk the river, according to activists, due to fears of being deported directly to Haiti. The Haitians’ presence is easily spotted in Matamoros; Haitians work in supermarkets, the main municipal market and on construction sites. Parts of central Matamoros are almost exclusively populated by Haitians. Haitians also move around freely – a sharp contrast from past years, when MPP camp residents seldom strayed from the site.
Sources speak of a new security arrangement, saying migrants in Matamoros pay the local drug cartel “derecho de piso” – extortion – which allows them entry into the city and free movement. Sources were uncertain of how much migrants paid the cartel to remain in Matamoros. A source described a collection system, in which members of the Haitian community are used by the cartel to receive payments and work as halcones (spies). Migrants are also provided a code after paying, which they must produce on demand.
CARTEL CONTROL OF THE RIO GRANDE
The extortion scheme reflects the control drug cartels wield over migration throughout Tamaulipas, the state resembling a bloated number seven and stuffed into the northeastern corner of Mexico.
Those payments include access to the Rio Grande, which migrants say is $500 for the right to cross – without any assistance – while the river is closely monitored. A 23-year-old Cuban migrant named Osniel entered the United States in late April, but was returned to Mexico – shortly after Mexico agreed to allow 100 Cubans and 20 Nicaraguans to be sent back to Mexico under Title 42 rules (after being previously exempted.)
Speaking from a migrant shelter in Reynosa, Osniel said he fled Cuba after being arrested for merely observing protests on the island last year. He booked a ticket to Managua – since Nicaragua removed visa rules for Cubans – and paid a smuggler $11,000 to take him to the United States. He knew what it cost to cross the river and that the cartel would be watching.
But he jumped the river anyway, taking the plunge sometime between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on June 8 near the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge. He called a reporter at 2 a.m. and sent a flurry of WhatsApp messages, saying: “Mexicans … armed with guns … here in the U.S. … threatened me they were going to enter.” He described hiding in the brush on the U.S. side of the river and sent geolocation information showing his position to be close to the port of entry in Hidalgo, Texas.
His last recorded activity on WhatsApp was shortly after 5:30 a.m., according to the messaging service, having moved further from the border and on the river side of the border wall. “It’s possible cartels had people on the Mexican side, where he went in the water,” said a source, who visits the Reynosa shelters frequently. “He was stuck between a wall and the cartel on the other side of the river.”
PAYMENT TO ENTER TAMAULIPAS
Migrants who had already entered the United States and received admittance – along with some still waiting in Mexico – also spoke of paying to cross the river, along with officials along the route north through Mexico. A Nicaraguan couple waiting for their onward trip to Washington state, spoke of spending nearly 10 days kidnapped in Reynosa – the product, they said, of not paying for entry into the state of Tamaulipas. The couple and their infant child, who spoke from McAllen, Texas, said they were riding a bus toward the border, but were ordered off the coach as it approached Reynosa. They were asked for a code, which they didn’t have, and subsequently kidnapped.
The couple described spending days in captivity, trying to raise funds from family back in Nicaragua – $3,000 to pay for passage through Tamaulipas and a trip across the Rio Grande. After relatives wired funds to the kidnappers, the family was taken across the Rio Grande at 7 a.m. on June 5. They subsequently surrendered to the border patrol and were released from custody within two days – with an order to check-in weekly with an immigration official.
CARAVAN DISMANTLED IN CHIAPAS – WITH IMMIGRATION DOCUMENTS
A caravan promoted as one of the biggest to set out from Tapachula was dismantled by Mexican immigration officials, who provided caravan participants with documents – which provide free passage through Mexico. The caravan left Tapachula on June 7 – with upwards of 10,000 participants, according to press reporters, who had been stuck in the city near the Guatemalan border and had been demanding immigration documents. Unlike previous caravans, many of the marchers were Venezuelans – who previously enjoyed visa-free travel through Mexico, but now must obtain travel documents.
In a statement June 11, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute (INM) said it “dissolved” the caravan through “dialogue” with participants. The INM said it attended to nearly 7,000 caravan participants, who were provided unspecified immigration documents, which “accredit their regular stay in the country.” The Associated Press reported that migrants showed its reporters documents, which gave them “one month or more” to either leave the country or regularize their immigration status.
Upon taking office in December 2018, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) – who campaigned saying: “Mexico won’t do the dirty work of any foreign governments,” when asked about the migration issue – started issuing humanitarian visas to people arriving at Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala. The humanitarian visas proved popular – with word spreading throughout Central America – as migrants used the document to quickly transit Mexico rather than pursue opportunities in the country. (Humanitarian visas allow bearers to work, study and receive social services for up to one year.)
AMLO started walking back the visa idea almost immediately. His government adopted an increasingly tougher stance, then President Donald Trump threatened escalating tariffs until migration through Mexico stopped. Migrant activists say caravans – which captured enormous attention in late 2018 and reached the U.S. border – have formed in recent months as migrants tire of waiting for immigration documents and resolutions to their asylum claims in Tapachula.
A Catholic priest working with migrants in the Diocese of Tapachula said caravans are becoming a way for migrants to force the government’s hand as they endure long waits in a city with few amenities or employment opportunities.
“They see the way in which they have managed to get the government to pay a little attention to them, so they at least take them to other places and so they’re not all concentrated in Tapachula.”
A collective of human rights groups and migrant activists, however, alleged the INM was not honoring the documents provided to caravan travellers. The collective, which monitors migration in southern Mexico, said in a June 13 statement, “People with the (documents) have been reported detained in various parts of national territory. The detentions were carried out under the false argument that the (documents) granted by the INM are not valid. In some cases, it was done by state police.”
‘IMPROVISED’ SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS SHOWS SHRINKING US STATURE IN THE HEMISPHERE
Leaders from the Americas – with many noticeable absences – met in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas, which became more a gathering for grandstanding and expressing grievances and gripes with the United States and Biden administration than a hemispheric show of unity and cooperation. The pre-summit chatter centered more on the guest list and potential boycotts – with a raft of countries insisting the undemocratic regimes of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela be invited – than discussions of trade and migration.
The summit, held every three or four years, largely lacked ambition according to analysts – especially compared to the inaugural summit in 1994, which produced hopes for hemispheric trade. Latin America subsequently veered left after 1994 – though it returned rightward for a time – and became less democratic over the next three decades. It also became more economically dependent on China, which gobbles up regional natural resource and agricultural exports. An analysis from Reuters found:
When excluding Mexico, total trade flows - imports and exports - between Latin America and China hit nearly $247 billion last year, according to the latest available data, well above the $174 billion with the United States.
This year’s summit in Los Angeles promised roadmaps on economic recovery – after COVID-19 waylaid Latin America – immigration and climate. Vice President Kamala Harris announced $1.9 billion in private-sector investments for Central America – part of the administration’s “root causes” strategy for slowing outward migration through improving living standards and governance in the region.
Attendees and analysts mostly walked away unenthused. A South American diplomat described the summit as “improvised,” according to the Atlantic. The article’s author William Neuman quoted Steve Liston, a former State Department official, who was involved in organizing several previous summits, saying:
“The administration did an own goal by its late planning, allowing this brouhaha about who came and who didn’t to be the dominant story. … It was as it appeared to be: put together at the last minute. And the main significance of that is that the region was left with the feeling that the U.S. didn’t care.”
MODEST REGIONAL MIGRATION AGREEMENT
Latin Americans often describe their relationship with the United States as being relegated to the backyard. And there’s a lingering anti-Americanism – though thousands depart daily on quixotic trips to the U.S. border as the American dream burns bright.
A White House fact sheet outlined four pillars for the “Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection,” which include: “(1) stability and assistance for communities; (2) expansion of legal pathways; (3) humane migration management; and (4) coordinated emergency response.”
The actions included countries committing to regularizing the status of migrants already on the move – and often reinterring previous promises. Colombia restated plans to regularize the status of 1.5 million migrants from neighbouring Venezuela by the end of August 2022; Ecuador said it would issue a sort of amnesty for Venezuelans; Costa Rica, meanwhile, pledged to renew a “special temporary complementary protection category scheme for migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba” – to site three examples.
Mexico promised to introduced a temporary labor program for up to 20,000 Guatemalans, while also “integrating 20,000 recognized refugees into the Mexican labor market over the next three years.”
The United States plans to spend $314 million on humanitarian assistance – via USAID and the State Department, according to the Los Angeles Times. It also will provide funding for new programs to accept refugees in places such as Ecuador and Costa Rica. The United States will also issue “11,500 H-2B nonagricultural seasonal worker visas for nationals of Northern Central America and Haiti.”
Twenty countries signed the agreement, though some observers noted only two leaders of the top ten nations sending migrants to the United States in April were at the summit – as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were not invited, while the presidents of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras boycotted.
Eric Farnsworth, vice-president of the America’s Society/Council of the Americas, noted somewhat pessimistically:
The leaders did issue a declaration on migration, as anticipated, which could soften the worst aspects of the migration crises. But the root causes remain: a strong US economy pulling migrants from the region, and deteriorating conditions in Central America, Cuba, Venezuela, and elsewhere pushing migrants toward the United States.
Everything else is a band aid, designed to integrate current migrants into local economies and provide humanitarian assistance. That’s not sustainable, but it’s what they could do at the summit. At some point, enforcement will also have to improve, but those are domestic issues not really appropriate for summit talks.
AMLO SNUBS BIDEN – AGAIN
Much of the pre-summit chatter focused on boycotts. Mexico’s AMLO led the charge, insisting he would not attend the summit unless “everyone” was invited – including Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Others in region parroted his rhetoric, exposing long-held gripes with the United States and enduring sympathies with the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes as the region electorally tilts leftward. (Guatemala boycotted over U.S. criticism of its appointment of an attorney general, who is sanctioned by the U.S. government over corruption accusations, along with criticisms of the U.S. ambassador meeting with indigenous leaders, which President Alejandro Giammattei told the Heritage Foundation want to topple his government; El Salvador’s increasingly autocratic President Nayib Bukele boycotted and blasted the Biden administration for its criticisms of human rights and erosion of democratic institutions there. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who had sympathies with Trump – and, like AMLO, delayed congratulating Biden after the U.S. election – spoke of skipping the summit, but reconsidered after being promised a bilateral meeting with Biden.)
But AMLO stole the spotlight, diverting attention from the summit agenda to his own discourse of propping up the Cuban regime. “It’s a type of genocide, a tremendous violation of human rights,” he said of the embargo against Cuba.
It didn’t go unnoticed, with Sen. Marco Rubio tweeting:
“Glad to see that the Mexican president, who has handed over sections of his country to drug cartels and is an apologist for tyranny in Cuba, a murderous dictator in Nicaragua and a drug trafficker in Venezuela, will not be in the U.S. this week.”
AMLO responded to the Rubio tweets with an attack on … Sen. Ted Cruz, who he accused of being funded by the gun industry (which Mexico is suing.) Reuters quoted the president saying:
“I want proof … because I have proof that (Ted Cruz) has received money from those in favor of gun manufacturing in the United States (to lobby against) a ban on sales.”
AMLO’S REVENGE?
AMLO skipping the summit added to a long list of discourtesies toward the Biden administration – while keeping relations cordial with President Trump. Columnist Raymundo Riva Palacio raised the prospect of revenge in AMLO’s refusal to attend the summit.
Riva Palacio specifically mentioned AMLO’s calls for USAID to strip funding from anti-graft group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, which exposed his son living the highlife in the Woodlands near Houston – in a home owned by an executive for a prominent Pemex contractor. (AMLO preaches personal austerity to the Mexican public.)
He also has called for ploughing money into Central America to slow migration – specifically a tree-planting scheme and youth job-training program. AMLO says the programs – which he promoted heavily at home and promoted as solutions for poverty, climate change, the pandemic response and immigration – should be provided $4 billion in U.S. funding.
Riva Palacio wrote of AMLO’s antics after not getting want he wanted from the United States:
“López Obrador started his boycott campaign against the Summit of the Americas with a strong criticism of the ‘blockade’ against Cuba, which led to a new estrangement with the Mexican government.”
One analyst, political science professor Federico Estévez at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, put the boycotts in a bigger picture of Latin American leaders showing little enthusiasm for talk of democratic decline – which Estévez described as suffering “more backsliding in the U.S.” than Latin America over the past 15 years, but from a higher base – along with many countries bucking calls to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
“This (summit) is just about saying: ‘We’re bringing the backyard along with us,’” Estévez said. “To the extent it’s about making sure that Biden’s got everyone standing in his corner, backing world democracy against the autocrats, to that extent, (AMLO) will do everything in his power to avoid being corralled in.”
MUST READ
The Wall Street Journal published a must-read story from Monterrey on why investors are avoiding and abandoning Mexico and how the López Obrador has done everything possible to discourage investment: