by ADN America Staff
Despite the increasing deportations and operations of the United States and Mexico , migrants on the border of the Mexican Ciudad Juárez with the American El Paso insist on crossing the Rio Grande (Grande) border irregularly. This was confirmed by a report from the Spanish news agency EFE this day.
The situation escalated because last week the US authorities expelled 200 migrants who crossed through gate 40 of the wall and handed them over to the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM) in Ciudad Juárez, where it was announced that they would return them to Chiapas , the state of the southern border of Mexico , the outlet said.
Venezuelan Marco Galindo considered it “very frustrating” to restart his route, according to the agency’s interviews: “It is as if it were a failure, everyone is looking for the dream of going to the United States and since we are here, that war that from Tapachula (city on the southern border) they make life impossible. Those from Immigration, the National Guard, chase us everywhere,” the migrant lamented.
The South American pointed out that among those who are stranded in the Rio Grande there is now doubt about whether to cross or not, because while in the United States the Texas National Guard beats them back, in Mexico the INM agents would return them to Chiapas in a truck hands tied, according to the rumor that has grown among migrants.
The Venezuelan also said that many of them have been in Juárez for more than five months, where, in addition to having to obtain resources, they have to face organized crime, and every day they make a journey of about ten kilometers along the border to see where to go.
What is happening in Ciudad Juárez reflects the growing restrictions at the United States border , where on May 9 the Government of the American Joe Biden enacted a rule that instructs immigration agents to prohibit people considered a “risk to public safety or national” request asylum.
Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed in late April “to work together to immediately implement concrete measures to significantly reduce irregular border crossings while protecting human rights.”
In the first quarter of 2024 alone, irregular migration intercepted by the Mexican Government grew by nearly 200 percent annually to almost 360,000.
José Luna Ochoa, another migrant from Venezuela who was stationed on the Rio Grande waiting to cross, attributed the operations to the fact that this year the elections in the United States and Mexico coincide. He added that, in addition to the climate, they deal with the insecurity that the Aztec country represents, both due to persecution by immigration authorities and kidnappings by organized crime.
“Yes, it is worth it, we want to give our children a better future, since in our country there is no education, there is no security, there is no health, we are in a dictatorship, a salary is seven dollars a month and two dollars is worth a kilo of flour to make some arepas,” the migrant told EFE .
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