San Diego Union-Tribune

MEXICO RELOCATES MIGRANT CAMP ALONG ITS BORDER WITH TEXAS

About 2,000 people moved out of park and into a shelter

- BY MARIA VERZA

Mexican authoritie­s said Tuesday they have relocated a migrant camp that sprung up in a park in the border city of Reynosa, moving about 2,000 people from Central America and Haiti to a shelter in the city, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

The camp of migrants mainly from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti sprung up after U.S. officials, citing the pandemic, invoked a health rule that denies migrants a chance to seek asylum.

Mexico’s National Immigratio­n Institute said the migrants were taken near midnight Monday to the shelter, which it said will have better hygiene and food services.

But on Monday, people in another border city, Nuevo Laredo, said hundreds of migrants, mainly Haitians, had streamed

into the city, which is across the border from Laredo, Texas.

The rush apparently started after the U.S. began processing some asylum seekers there.

The Catholic bishop of Nuevo Laredo said Monday that migrant shelters there are already overcrowde­d, with some migrants sleeping outside in tents.

Bishop Enrique Sanchez Martinez said migrants started streaming into Nuevo Laredo in late April, though the city isn’t usually

popular among migrants, in part because it is dominated by the violent Northeast drug cartel.

“It is new for us because this is the last place they come, due to the conditions of our border, of our city, which are sometimes adverse for migrants,” the bishop said. “But since they opened the door in the United States to asylum requests, a lot of them came in large groups.”

 ?? DARIO LOPEZ-MILLS AP FILE ?? Migrants sleep under a gazebo at a park in Reynosa, Mexico, last year. The camp was cleared this week.
DARIO LOPEZ-MILLS AP FILE Migrants sleep under a gazebo at a park in Reynosa, Mexico, last year. The camp was cleared this week.

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