Migrant camps grow in Mexico amid uncertainty

TIJUANA, MEXICO >> As darkness fell, about 250 police officers and city workers swept into a squalid camp for migrants hoping to apply for asylum in the United States. Migrants had to register for credentials or leave. Within hours, those who stayed were surrounded by enough chain-link fence to extend twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.

The Oct. 28 operation may have been the beginning of the end for a camp that once held about 2,000 people and blocks a major border crossing to the United States. There may be more camps to come.

First lady Jill Biden sharply criticized a similar camp in Matamoros, bordering Brownsville, Texas, on a 2019 visit, saying, “It’s not who we are as Americans.” The Biden administration touted its work closing that camp in March, but others sprang up around the same time in nearby Reynosa and in Tijuana.

The camps, full of young children, are a product of policies that force migrants to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court or prohibit them from seeking asylum under pandemic-related public health powers. Uncertainty about U.S. asylum policies has also contributed to growing migrant populations in Mexican border cities, creating conditions for more camps.

Migrants are often out of public view in border cities, but the Tijuana camp is highly visible and disruptive. Tents covered with blue tarps and black plastic bags block entry to a border crossing where an average of about 12,000 people entered the U.S. daily before the pandemic. It is one of three pedestrian crossings to San Diego.

The U.S. fully reopened land borders with Mexico and Canada to vaccinated travelers Nov. 8.

Montserrat Caballero, Tijuana’s first female mayor, said officials did “almost nothing” to control the camp before she took office Oct. 1. When she asked Mexico’s state and federal governments to join her in erecting a fence and introducing a registry, they declined.

“The authorities at every level were scared — scared of making a mistake, scared of doing something wrong and affecting their political careers,” she said in an interview. “No one wants to deal with these issues.”

Caballero said she acted to protect migrants. She knows of no homicides or kidnappings at the camp, but The Associated Press found that assaults, drug use and threats have been common.

“I could not close my eyes to the flashing red light I saw,” she said. “Closing your eyes only allows it grow.”

The only entry-exit is guarded around the clock by Tijuana police. Migrants with credentials are free to come and go.

“There is no asylum process (in the United States) until further notice,” Enrique Lucero, the city’s director of migrant services, told people who asked about U.S. policy on a morning walkthrough last week.

Since March 2020, the U.S. has used Title 42, named for a public health law, to expel adults and families without an opportunity for asylum; unaccompanied children are exempt. But the Biden administration has exercised that authority on only about one of every four who come in families, largely due to resource constraints and Mexico’s reluctance to take back Central American families.

It’s unclear why the U.S. releases many families to seek asylum and returns others to Mexico, prompting those who are turned back to stick around until they succeed.

Mayra Funes, a 28-yearold Honduran, said she didn’t get a chance to make her case to agents when she was expelled crossing the border illegally near McAllen, Texas, in March with her 7-year-old daughter. She doesn’t know if she will try again after six months in the Tijuana camp.