From El Paso and Ciudad Juarez to San Diego and Tijuana, migrants lined part of the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday in a last-ditch attempt to enter the U.S. hours before the pandemic-era health rules known as Title 42 end. gathered along. .
Some immigrants from Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Central America fear it will be difficult for them to remain on the mainland. once the restrictions are lifted.
Below are some of the scenes that unfold along the 1,950-mile border.
“I don’t know what to think now”
Maria José Durán, a 24-year-old student from Venezuela, was sitting on the banks of a river in Matamoros, Mexico, almost crying.
Mexican immigration officials were moving migrants to makeshift camps, keeping them away from crossing the Rio Grande.
Durand said he dropped out of college and traveled to the United States with a group of friends and relatives because his parents could no longer afford it.they crossed the bridge Traitor Darien Gap It cuts Colombia and Panama, then cuts six more countries before reaching the US border.
“I don’t know what to think now, after such a difficult journey, and now in this situation,” she said as at least a dozen Texas state troopers with rifles He gestured to the other bank standing behind the bellows wire.
From the Mexican side, the Texas National Guard was seen reinforcing razor wire to prevent immigrant encroachment.
Durand was later seen walking along the embankment with other migrants who had crossed the Rio Grande and crossed barbed wire.
“And now will things get better or worse for us?”
Hundreds of migrants lined up next to a border wall in Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez as they crossed the border on Thursday morning and were received by US Border Patrol. That number was significantly lower than in recent days.
Ecuadorian Washington Javier Vaca, his wife Paulina Congo, and their two children, ages 14 and 7, knew nothing about the rule change.
“And will things get better or worse for us now?” Congo asked. “We asked for asylum in Mexico, but after four months they refused us.”
A Salvadoran man who identified himself as David fled the border back to Ciudad Juárez for fear of being deported.
“We are in an unprecedented situation.”
Authorities in the remote desert region of Yuma, Arizona, have issued a warning after the average daily number of migrant arrivals rose from 300 to 1,000 this week.
Hundreds of people who crossed the Colorado River into the Yuma area early Thursday surrendered to border agents before loading adults and children onto buses.
Mayor Doug Nichols has asked the federal government to declare a national emergency and dispatch Federal Emergency Management Agency resources and the National Guard to rush to the mayor and other small border communities.
Most migrants are transferred to shelters run by nonprofits far from the border, but border officials plan to release migrants back into the community if sufficient transportation is not available. Nichols said officials had already told him they planned to release 141 processed immigrants in Yuma County on Friday.
“There’s always the question, ‘What’s next?’ I kept asking this question for two years and never got an answer,” Nichols said. “We are in an unprecedented situation.”
“I heard it on the radio, but it was all a lie.”
Smugglers helped Guatemalan Shady Mazariegos and her four-year-old son reach Matamoros, Mexico, where she and her child crossed the Rio Grande on a raft.
But Border Patrol agents detained two people near Brownville, Texas, a week ago. On Thursday, the 26-year-old and her son returned to Guatemala on one of two flights carrying a total of 387 migrants.
“I heard on the news that there was a chance to enter the country. I heard it on the radio, but it was all a lie,” Mazariegos said.
