Mexican border city of Tijuana faces migration crisis with no clear solution

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Around 3,000 migrants, including Central Americans and Mexicans arriving from other parts of the country, sleep outdoors in El Chaparral, on the border between Tijuana and the United States, a situation that is worsening week by week and does not seem to have a solution in the short term.

It has been a little more than three months since the first group of migrants arrived at this point, which before the covid-19 pandemic was a pedestrian exit door from San Ysidro, a district of San Diego (United States) to Tijuana.

Little by little, the camp grew, with no clear control or pronouncement by the Mexican authorities, who state that they are waiting for the United States to present a strategic plan on the matter.

The migratory wave has grown in the region since 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and meteorological catastrophes.

And it increased substantially with the arrival of Democrat Joe Biden to the White House with the promise to regulate millions of irregular migrants and attend to cases of asylum seekers stranded for months in Mexico.

The number of migrants detained by the Border Patrol has been growing for months and jumped from 101,028 in February to 172,131 in March, its highest monthly level in two decades.

WAITING FOR U.S. RESPONSE

“The United States has informed us in the talks we have had with them that they will soon release news on the issue,” said Jesus Alejandro Ruiz Uribe, Mexico’s federal government delegate in Baja California, recently.

The federal official told the press in Tijuana that the migrants created the encampment as a protest since they ask that Joe Biden’s campaign promises be fulfilled, mainly regarding the opening of the border.

On the other hand, Angels Without Borders, an organization that has defended migrants in the northern region of the country, has spoken out strongly for the authorities of the three levels of government to act and provide a solution for the migrants in El Chaparral.

José María García, a representative of this organization and director of the Juventud 2000 shelter, regretted that the authorities are slow and allow the number of migrants camping without control to increase, leaving them in unsanitary conditions on the public streets.

STORIES OF PAIN

The stories inside the migrant camp are varied.

Even some of those who sleep there wanted to stay in Tijuana and improve their living situation. However, they said they were frustrated by corruption and violation of their human rights.

This is the case of Fred, a young man who sleeps under a tent with his wife and 7-month-old son.

He and his partner arrived in Tijuana with the interest of working and building a healthy home, fleeing poverty and violence in Honduras.

However, he was the victim of a crime in Mexico that he tried to report. Still, it turned into abuse of authority and harassment towards him, so now he decided to fight for political asylum in the United States.

With his face covered and some tears in his eyes, Fred spoke this Saturday with Efe and shared that he is afraid of dying and that his death will go unpunished.

“I wanted to stay here in Tijuana with my family and be able to get ahead, but from what I see, things are not as they seem, because here we live a life of many fantasies and few realities,” said the man, who lamented the “existing racism.”

“They see you as trash,” stressed Fred, one of the stories of life among the thousands of migrants who have arrived at the northern border of Mexico in recent months.

The migrants at this point in Tijuana sleep under tents, some donated by civil organizations that provide them with daily food, and others made of boards and tarps, exposed to the region’s constant climate changes.

Currently, the municipal government has installed mobile toilets and showers, but this is not enough because many people are growing steadily and rapidly.

THE MEETING WITH HARRIS

The migratory wave and the situation in the northern Mexican border, which is replicated in other cities such as the border city of Reynosa, in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, was addressed this Friday by the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.

Harris urged López Obrador to jointly address the causes of migration from the Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador).

While López Obrador described the conversation as “friendly,” affirmed that both nations are committed “to work together to seek effective, humane and just measures to the migratory phenomenon”.

However, a definitive agreement was not reached for the United States to financially support the Mexican reforestation program Sembrando Vida, which provides aid to farmers in the countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America.

Source: efe