El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, two cities along the southern border of the United States, prepared on Sunday for a surge of up to 5,000 new migrants per day as pandemic-era immigration restrictions expire this week. Plans for emergency housing, food, and other necessities were put into motion.
Only piles of abandoned clothing, shoes, and backpacks remained on the Mexican side of the international border on Sunday morning along the banks of the Rio Grande River, where up until a few days ago hundreds of people were waiting up to surrender themselves to American authorities. One young man from Ecuador questioned two journalists if they knew what would happen if he turned himself in without having a sponsor in the U.S.; after which, he cautiously took off his shoes and socks and hobbled over the shallow water.
He joined a group of 12 people waiting in line beside a tiny barrier on the American side that was guarded by numerous Border Patrol cars, but there were no American officials nearby.
The region, which is home to one of the busiest border crossings in the nation, is coordinating housing and relocation efforts with organizations and other cities and has requested humanitarian assistance from the state and federal governments, according to El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, who spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday. When public health law Title 42 expires on Wednesday, the region is bracing for a wave of immigrant arrivals that might quadruple their daily numbers.
Since March 2020, the rule has prevented more than 2.5 million migrants from entering.
Carmen Aros, 31, worked at a migrant shelter close to the river in a low-income Ciudad Juárez district, but she had little knowledge of American policies. She even claimed to have heard that the border might close on December 21.
Right after the birth of her fifth child and the disappearance of her husband, she left the cartel violence in the Mexican state of Zacatecas a month ago. She has been placed on a list to be paroled into the United States by the Methodist pastor who oversees the Buen Samaritano shelter, and she waits each week to hear her name called.
On the bunk bed she shared with the females, she added, “They told me there was asylum in Juarez, but in reality, I didn’t know much. “Now that we’ve arrived, let’s see whether the American administration can settle our dispute.”
On two TVs, scores of migrants watched the World Cup final Sunday in a large shelter run by the Mexican government in a former Ciudad Juárez factory as a visiting medical team from El Paso treated many who had contracted respiratory illnesses due to the cold weather.
Planning is difficult since rules are constantly changing, according to Dylan Corbett, director of the Hope Border Institute, a Catholic charity that assists migrants in El Paso and Juarez. The clinic was launched by the organisation two months ago.
You’ve got a lot of unreleased pain, Corbett stated. “I’m worried about what will happen,” “The majority of the labor falls on faith communities to pick up the pieces and cope with the consequences” as a result of the chaos caused by government policies.
A few blocks away, in El Paso, sleet was falling as roughly 80 huddled migrants ate tacos that volunteers had cooked. This week, the region was expected to experience below-freezing temperatures.
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Veronica Castorena, who came out with her husband carrying tortillas and ground beef as well as blankets for those who will probably spend the night on the streets, said, “We’re going to keep giving them as much as we have.”
Owner of a trucking school in the area Jeff Petion stated that this was his second trip with staff to assist migrants in the streets. “We wanted to let them know they’re not alone because they’re out here, cold, and hungry.
However, retired woman Kathy Countiss, who lives across the street from Petion, expressed concern that El Paso’s influx of newcomers will outgrow control, depleting resources and diverting law enforcement attention from criminals to asylum seekers.
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser requested an emergency declaration on Saturday to gain access to more regional and national resources for constructing shelters and providing other critically needed relief.
The order, according to Samaniego, the county judge, was issued one day after El Paso officials wrote to Texas Governor Greg Abbott to request humanitarian aid for the area. Samaniego added that the letter asked for resources to help care for and relocate the recently arrived migrants rather than more security forces.
In the event that the city does not immediately receive state assistance, Samaniego said he has received no answer to the request and intends to submit a similar county-wide emergency proclamation outlining the kind of assistance the area requires. He pleaded with the federal and state governments to contribute the extra funds, saying they had a plan in place but needed more financial, material, and volunteer resources.
In order to relocate migrants to larger cities where they can be flown or transported by bus to their eventual destinations, El Paso officials have been working with NGOs to offer temporary accommodation for migrants while they are processed, given sponsors, and relocated, according to Samaniego. Samaniego stated that starting on Wednesday, they will all work together at a single emergency command center, much like how they handled the COVID-19 incident.
Requests for comments on Sunday from Abbott, El Paso city authorities, and US Customs and Border Protection were not immediately answered.
Abbott has pledged billions of dollars to “Operation Lone Star,” a ground-breaking border security initiative that includes busing migrants to cities that have been dubbed “sanctuaries” like New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., as well as a significant National Guard and state trooper presence along the Texas-Mexico border.
Furthermore, the Republican governor of Texas has promoted ongoing initiatives to construct former President Donald Trump’s wall utilizing primarily private property along the border and crowdsourcing cash to help pay for it.
El Paso abruptly overtook Del Rio, Texas, which itself had swiftly surpassed Texas’ Rio Grande Valley as the busiest corridor late last year. El Paso had previously been the fifth-busiest of the Border Patrol’s nine sectors along the Mexico border. This change occurred in March. El Paso has developed into a potent migrant magnet in recent months, pulling particularly large numbers of people since September. The reason for this is unclear.
Recent illegal border crossings in El Paso, which were initially predominately made up of Venezuelans and more recently, Nicaraguans, remind of a brief period in 2019, when immigrants from Cuba and Central America suddenly overran the westernmost regions of Texas and the eastern end of New Mexico. For years, there had not been many unauthorized crossings in El Paso.
While this was going on, a group of approximately 300 migrants were halted by Mexican officials while travelling north on Saturday night from a region close to the Mexico-Guatemala border. Some intended to arrive on December 21 because they believed that after the measure expired, they would no longer be able to apply for asylum. Among immigrants, there is frequently a lot of misinformation about U.S. immigration laws. The majority of the group consisted of Venezuelans and Central Americans who had entered Mexico through the southern border and had been unsuccessfully searching for transit or exit visas, immigration documents that may have permitted them to cross Mexico to the U.S. border.
Erick Martnez, a Venezuelan immigrant, stated, “We want to get to the United States as quickly as possible, before they seal the border.
