Dozens of people arrived this Friday at the heavily guarded border between Mexico and the United States, on the day Washington announced that this year’s record for migrant crossings was broken in August.
Customs and Border Protection reported 232,972 migrant crossings at the southern border in August. Since the beginning of the fiscal year in October, the number exceeds 2.2 million.
(Keep reading: The United States extends TPS and reassigns immigration protection for Venezuelans).
In Eagle Pass, Texas, migrants from countries such as Honduras and Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande that separates the United States and Mexico to find an almost insurmountable wall of barbed wire that prevented them from entering US territory and surrendering to the authorities.
“I’m happy because I’m one step away,” said Noe Zelaya, a Honduran who, along with his wife and two children, ages 12 and 5, came across the tangle of wires. “But I’m sad because we can’t get through,” the man commented while his wife, Belkys Cruz, 33, asked for help from the US military stationed at the scene.
I feel sad because I thought it would be easier when I got here
“They can’t pass,” said one of the soldiers amidst the cries of Jonathan, the couple’s youngest son, who asked to go home. “We are desperate,” Belkys sobbed as her husband tried to move the sand under the barbed wire to open a hole. “We could no longer handle the gangs,” the country’s organized crime, said the 35-year-old man who worked as a mechanic in his native San Pedro Sula. “That’s why we ran away.”
The family crossed the river with water up to their chests, as did a couple of Venezuelans who arrived just as the sun was setting on the Texas city. “I feel sad because I thought it would be easier when I got here,” said Juan Díaz, 28, who identified himself as a military deserter from the country immersed in an endless political and economic crisis. “But my dream is to get there, so I’m going to fight,” commented the young man who continued upstream until he found an opening in the dense jungle of wires. Upon crossing he surrendered to the border authorities stationed a few meters away.
The situation at the border
Thousands of people have arrived in recent days at various border points in Texas with barely their clothes on, fleeing political regimes or in search of economic opportunities. The issue divides American society, confronts political sectors and casts criticism on the administration of President Joe Biden, which has tried to discourage this migratory flow by announcing special programs to process asylum and visas in their countries of origin.
With tensions rising in the conservative state of Texas, Alejandro Mayorkas, US secretary of homeland security, He must meet this Saturday with the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, in the also border city of McAllen to discuss cooperation on immigration matters.
AFP
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