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They yearn for safety, health care and jobs: the reasons why thousands of migrants wait in Mexico and thousands more arrive every week

2022-09-01T13:15:46.741Z


Earlier this year, the number of migrants waiting in Mexico's northern border communities surged in anticipation of the end of Title 42. And more migrants keep coming, hoping to cross into the US.


The reactions of many of the migrants who could not reach the US 2:09

Reynosa, Mexico (CNN) --

Pastor Héctor Silva is moved as he describes how he recently had to turn mothers, babies in their arms, away from the doors of his migrant shelter.

“It's very difficult,” Silva said, her voice cracking.

"To stand in the doorway and see a mother with a child and say, 'I'm sorry. I can't help you.'"

Silva has had to do that countless times in recent months, as thousands of migrants continue to arrive daily in the northern Mexican border city of Reynosa.

Most of the new arrivals are Haitians.

Silva estimates that some 12,800 migrants are waiting in Reynosa.

In his two "Senda de Vida" shelters, Silva has enough food and tents for nearly 6,000 people.

Life inside the shelters is about sharing.

Thousands share toilets, showers, laundry stations, clotheslines and cell phone charging stations.

Outside the women's restroom, the rules for using the facilities are posted in two languages ​​and there are reminders to keep the area clean.

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Life outside the shelter doors is about survival.

Migrants have set up makeshift camps;

one is just a few meters from the banks of the Rio Grande.

About 350 people live there, according to Alma Ruth, founder and director of the Practice Mercy Foundation.

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The reactions of many of the migrants who could not reach the US 2:09

Unlike shelter tents, which are on concrete or gravel, some of these tents are on dirt or wooden decks.

There, migrants have built makeshift open-air kitchens by placing metal grills on concrete blocks in the bare earth.

"Many of them have serious health problems and the local Mexican hospital denied service to pregnant women," Ruth said.

Earlier this year, the number of migrants waiting in northern Mexico border communities, including Reynosa, surged in anticipation of the termination of Title 42, the Trump-era public health order that has been used nearly 2 .2 million times to expel migrants from the United States to Mexico and other countries.

In April, more than 7,000 migrants, mostly from Central America and Haiti, waited in Reynosa for Title 42 to be lifted.

The result in the border cities was amazing to see.

The shelters were full of desperate people.

A public square at the foot of the international bridge had become a tent city, with some migrants sleeping under tarps and not knowing where their next meal would come from.

The very conditions made migrants, many of whom were fleeing violence and extortion in their home countries, easy prey for criminal organizations.

Pamela Rosales, coordinator of the Médecins Sans Frontières project in the region, called the migrants' situation a "humanitarian crisis" due to the overwhelming number of people arriving and the limited resources available to them.

“Reynosa is the last stage of people who come from everywhere [in Mexico and the world] fleeing from violence, fleeing from poverty, from corruption,” Rosales said.

Part of the challenge is the increasingly diverse origin of the arriving migrants.

"We saw a big change in people who don't speak Spanish, so even though we have the resources, we have the language barrier," Rosales said.

Some of the most common medical issues her team of 65, including physicians, social workers, outreach and logistics staff, treat include acute upper respiratory, digestive and mental health issues, as well as skin conditions in the children spreading rapidly in crowded conditions without consistent hygiene practices, such as handwashing.

For now, there is no scheduled end to Title 42: A federal judge ordered the Biden administration to keep the controversial order in place at the end of May.

And the desperation of the people who live in Reynosa, in Senda de Vida, in the streets and in makeshift camps, does not have a clear end either.

The promise of help and safety

Inside a tent at Senda de Vida, a Haitian couple, Francillon Makenson and Pierre Marie Rose, and their toddler, who is named after their father, said they heard about Reynosa from word of mouth during their trip.

Rows of tents set up at the Senda de Vida shelter on August 30, 2022. (Credit: Michael Nigro/Getty Images)

For five years, the couple lived in São Paulo, Brazil, where their son, who is now two and a half years old, was born.

For months, they traveled north through South and Central America on foot and by bus.

"We made a lot of friends along the way who kept in touch with us and one passed through here," Makenson said, speaking in Portuguese.

"He said that in Reynosa there were many organizations that would help us, and also that there were lawyers."

The Makensons have been on Path of Life for a month.

About a dozen other migrants at the shelter told CNN they also learned from social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook that an organization in Reynosa was helping migrants legally cross into the United States.

It's a fairly common way of finding hope on social media and the web, often putting the most vulnerable in dire straits.

Federal immigration authorities are also warning that transnational criminal organizations are using misinformation to encourage migrants to make the dangerous and costly journey to the U.S. southern border. In June, the Department of Homeland Security said it had launched an operation unprecedented to disrupt human trafficking networks.

Silva says there is some truth to what immigrants like the Makensons have heard, but not everyone qualifies for the Title 42 exceptions that will grant them entry into the United States.

CNN contacted the Department of Homeland Security about this story and did not receive a statement on record.

For most of the pandemic, exceptions to the controversial rule were rare and only made for vulnerable people on a case-by-case basis.

But from May through July, more than 28,000 Title 42 exceptions were made at six ports of entry, including four in Texas and one each in Arizona and California.

About 42% occurred on the Reynosa-Hidalgo international bridge, court records show.

"Given a significant increase in the number of individuals who have come forward in situations warranting humanitarian exceptions pursuant to the terms of CDC's Title 42 public health orders, DHS, effective July 13, 2022, gradually increased the number of humanitarian exceptions it applies, subject to operational restrictions," the court documents say.

  • The US Secretary of Homeland Security reiterates his request to migrants at the southern border: "Don't come"

A young migrant looks through a window at the Senda de Vida shelter.

(Credit: Michael Nigro/Getty Images)

The thought of qualifying for one of those exceptions has filled the sea of ​​carp within the concrete walls of the Path of Life with hope.

Francillon Makenson dreams of a job that pays in dollars so he can take little Francillon to the doctor.

The toddler can't keep food down, follows a milkshake and hasn't been diagnosed for months.

"He's two years and seven months old and he hasn't spoken since the trip," Makenson said.

The journey was difficult for little Francillon, who also developed chronic ear infections and digestive problems.

Pointing to a can of Leche Nido fortified milk, Makenson said he won't last a week.

But still, Makenson told CNN he thinks it's all worth it.

"My goal is to go to the United States," she said.

"I am looking for a place that is safer for my family."

Haiti, he said, was "very tough."

“There is violence, deaths, earthquakes, too many things,” Makenson said.

Other migrants in the shelter also expressed that the violence was the reason they fled their countries of origin.

Within the walls of Path of Life is the safest some of them have felt in recent memory.

Like a 14-year-old girl who said she fled the cartel-ridden southern Mexican state of Guerrero with her mother and five siblings.

She told Silva that she was looking forward to going to school.

Later, her mother told Silva that in Guerrero, children witness kidnappings and murders.

Neither shared their names with CNN.

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He drowned in the last minutes of his two-month journey to the American dream 3:13

An eternal waiting list

The list of immigrants hoping to qualify for a Title 42 exception is in the thousands, said Silva, the pastor of the migrant shelter.

Every week thousands more arrive and the wait can take months.

Silva's list is first-come, first-served at the shelter, he explained.

The list is also divided into various groups, such as singles, families with children, and vulnerable populations.

Pro bono attorneys who volunteer at the shelter use their list to help migrants organize their identification and other documents.

And then the waiting continues.

Silva said that every day he transports about 200 migrants with their documents to the Reynosa-Hidalgo port of entry.

From there he does not know the process, but he says that those migrants have not returned to his shelter.

Across the border in McAllen, Texas, Sister Norma Pimentel welcomes those who qualified for Title 42 exemptions and were processed by US Immigration.

The rest center where she works offers migrants something to eat and a place to charge their cell phones.

Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, praised the Biden Administration's decision to allow migrants to seek asylum at ports of entry through an exception to Title 42.

"It's a great way to allow people to be processed in a legal, correct, safe, orderly manner and not to get people between the points of entry," Pimentel said.

"I think that's the safest thing for children and mothers ... who risk their lives when they enter the river or expose their lives to the traffickers who take advantage of them."

The rest center is located across the street from a Greyhound bus station, where CNN this week observed groups of Haitian immigrants walking from the center to the bus station.

Those interviewed by CNN said they had been on Path of Life before entering the United States.

“Two months [on Senda de Vida],” said one of the migrants who only wanted to be identified as a 44-year-old Haitian man.

He was headed to Florida;

others in the group said they were going to New York.

Pimentel recalls that earlier this year, only several dozen Title 42 exceptions were allowed per day because he received migrants at his respite center.

This week, Pimentel estimates that between 150 and 200 migrants have passed through services per day before embarking on their journeys to other parts of the country.

Pimentel says he doesn't know what the solution is to the wave of migrants waiting at the border, but he hopes the US and Mexican governments can help keep them safe.

At Senda De Vida, Silva calls families by the size of their family units and the date of arrival.

"Families of three," Silva said into a microphone.

"Families of three who arrived on May 1."

An anxious crowd of migrants gathered around him, some with their passports in hand and their belongings in suitcases or plastic bags.

A little boy had a toy plastic construction truck under his arm.

His face, full of hope.

Among them was Pierre Marie Rose, the wife of Francillon Makenson, who let out a whoop of joy for her family of three.

Makenson carried the little Francillon on his shoulders.

Pierre Marie listened intently as Silva announced that the next people to line up at the border were those who arrived in the first week of May.

The Makensons were not called that day.

They arrived in early August.

"First he cheered us up because he said families of three, but then ... no, we have to wait," Makenson said.

This waiting game is giving hope to thousands of migrants, but it is a phenomenon that has Silva, who has been receiving migrants for a quarter of a century in Reynosa, conflicted.

So much so that he had these messages for President Joe Biden and for migrants.

To President Biden, Silva said: “We invite you to come see the migrants.”

To the migrants: “Don't come to the border.

Don't come to Reynosa."

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-09-01

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