SAN DIEGO — The sprawling immigrant camp that opened this week in the US territory between Tijuana and San Diego has seen a surprising system of order emerge amid growing unrest and uncertainty.
The Africans in the camp (from Ghana, Somalia, Kenya, Guinea and Nigeria) were led by a tall Somali man who told them how many blankets, diapers and sanitary pads they would need for the day. I am in contact with aid agencies. Colombians, like Afghans, Turks, and Haitians, have their own leaders.
Residents of the camps here, stuck in the same pattern of stay as thousands of other migrants in border cities after pandemic-era immigration restrictions expired Thursday night, will be provided by volunteers and volunteers. They had to make do with scarce food and water. border guard.
U.S. aid workers pass through metal bars, rolls of toilet paper, bags of clementine oranges, water bottles, packages of toothbrushes, and more.
“Can you get a leader from Jamaica!” camp aid worker Flower Alvarez Lopez called on Friday.
A woman in a sun hat and pink tie-dyed shirt puts her hand into the wall. Another woman in her beanie pushed her cheek over her beam. “Can you bring a leader from Afghanistan!” Russia! “
As thousands of migrants arrived at the border this week ahead of the expiration of the immigration ban known as Title 42, feelings of frustration, despair and resilience unfolded on the ground. And on Friday, just hours after the restrictions ended, the wait and uncertainty continued, even as the creativity one after another.
Thousands of migrants who crossed the Rio Grande in recent days debate what to do next, while thousands of others wait in northern Mexico to decipher when and how they can cross too. I was striving.
Officials in border cities also faced uncertainty as they tried to predict how policy changes would play out.
El Paso Mayor Oscar Lieser told reporters on Friday that about 1,800 migrants entered the border city on Thursday. “We saw a lot of people coming to our area last week,” he said. But since Title 42 was lifted overnight, “we haven’t had big numbers,” he said.
Shelter operators reported that it was too early to tell what would happen in the next few days as most of those who crossed were still being processed by the US government. But they, too, predicted that the largest surge in railroad crossings may have passed.
“The number of people pulled from the banks of the river across the wall yesterday was significant, but not as many as anyone expected,” said the director of the Annunciation House, which helps migrants. said Ruben Garcia of El Paso area. “We’ll have to see what happens in the next few days. There are many variables,” he said.
But while that number didn’t soar on Friday, officials said the number of crosses hit a historic high in the days leading up to Title 42’s end. More than 11,000 people crossed the southern border illegally on one day last week, pushing border patrol-run detention centers to capacity, according to internal agency data obtained by The New York Times. About 7,000 people have crossed it on a typical day for the past two years. Officials believe the figure of more than 8,000 is a sharp increase.
A person familiar with the situation said fewer than 10,000 people were detained while crossing the border on Thursday, suggesting the biggest increase may have occurred before Title 42 was lifted. I have, but I don’t know yet. The Biden administration has said it expects up to 14,000 border crossers per day soon after the executive order expires.
Outside a shelter in McAllen, Texas, Ligia Garcia ponders her family’s next steps. Although she was overjoyed to finally cross the Rio Grande, she found herself in the same situation as thousands of other immigrants living along the Mexican border, without her family or money in the United States. The kindness of strangers.
“Right now I’m going to ask for help. I have no money, no options,” said Garcia, 31, a Venezuelan immigrant with her six-month-old son Loim, near a bulging shelter run by a Catholic charity. It’s the body,” he said. “She sacrificed a lot to get here,” she said, taking her husband and her two children through the jungles of Central America and then Mexico to Texas. She told me how she was. “But it was worth it. We are in America.”
Eileen Sullivan Contributed to the report.
