Mexico housing migrant caravan
PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — When about 1,800 Central American immigrants landed in this border city Monday, hoping to enter the United States, local and state officials in Mexico were ready for them.
In fact, they had chartered the 48 buses and one Sprinter that carried the caravan of Central Americans about 270 miles to the border from Saltillo, the state capital of Coahuila.
“Coahuila, Saltillo and Piedras Negras arranged for the buses. Their leaders had all met on Saturday in Saltillo, and came up with a plan,” Coahuila state spokesman José Gabriel Borrego said.
By Tuesday, the migrants, including a large number of women and young children, were being housed in an unused maquiladora, a former assembly plant. There are about 35 active industrial plants in this border city.
A large new sign on the fence reads, “Albergue Migrantes,” Spanish for “Migrant Shelter.”
The caravan was the first to reach the Texas border since similar waves of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America traveled on foot and in vehicles last fall through Mexico toward California.
Some of the migrants there
tried to crash the border illegally and were met by Border Patrol agents firing tear gas canisters.
The chaotic scenes led to a new policy by the Trump administration in December that requires asylum-seekers on the southern border to wait in Mexico until they can see a U.S. immigration official, a process that can take months for their initial hearing.
It was one of several policy changes after the administration was widely criticized for separating parents and children at the border last year and holding them in detention.
Mexican officials have reluctantly agreed to accommodate the waiting immigrants by issuing them “humanitarian visas” and work permits.
The policy change is seen by many as an effort to discourage asylum cases, and is expected to reduce the number who apply.
In Piedras Negras, across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, long lines already were forming inside the migrant hostel to apply for humanitarian visas. The visas allow the immigrants to leave the enclosure, but they are of no help in entering the United States.
Amid mobs of reporters and scores of heavily armed police and soldiers, Coahuila Gov. Miguel Riquelme Solis, Piedras Negras Mayor Claudio Bres Garza and other state officials inspected the facility Tuesday.
“The governor said he would guarantee the safety and dignity of the people, and that they would have food and the basic necessities,” Borrego said.
Some immigrants had tried to climb over a 12-foot fence and escape Monday night, but they were pushed back. On Tuesday, a line of soldiers and grim-faced federal police stood along the fence to deter any similar attempts.
They were backed up by a SWAT team of state police wearing helmets and riot gear.
“It’s an enormous number of immigrants, so we’re coordinating with the army and federal police,” said Luis Garcia, the Piedras Negras police chief. “There have been a few problems among the immigrants, but we’re keeping them separated.”
Inside the fence, people were drying clothes on lines, children were using crayons and coloring books, men were getting haircuts and others were buying cigarettes and food through the fence.
Some Central Americans were paying a stiff markup: A pack of Mexican Chesterfield cigarettes that cost 30 pesos on the outside was bringing 55 pesos through the bars.
In the large sleeping rooms, once used for manufacturing, immigrants were divided according to age and gender. Many were lounging on blue foam mattresses.
Along the fence, some were offering to sell their stories to American and Mexican reporters. Others spoke freely.
“We’re prisoners. We can’t get out. We didn’t expect this,” said Raul Artaga, 22, of Honduras.
“We crossed at Chiapas. It took us 22 days to get here. We’re poor. There is no work in Honduras. I want to work in the United States,” he added.
A little farther down the fence, Susana Chacon Jovel, 32, and her 2-year-old son Derek, from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, were getting accustomed to the sudden turn of events.
“We were in the first caravan. We left Honduras on Oct. 13. We’ve been traveling five months,” she said.
“They told us they’d give us papers to get into the United States, but they lied,” she said of the smugglers who helped them cross into Mexico from Guatemala.
Like others, she said violence and poverty in Honduras makes anything else worth a shot, even if it means traveling for months, and being detained.
“I think there are more gangsters in Honduras than police,” she said bitterly.
At a nearby booth inside the enclosure, Irene Chapa de Bres, the Piedras Negras mayor’s wife, and several other women were handing out water, cookies and crackers.
“These are little snacks for the children,” she said. “The situation is difficult, but we feel their humanity. We are citizens of the world, not of Mexico.”
Later Tuesday night, a local band came in to provide music for a dance to help keep the adults entertained.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said they are monitoring several caravans headed north from Central America and have reinforced staffing to “address any contingency.”
It was clear that federal officials in Eagle Pass were on high alert Tuesday, just hours before President Demand Trump was to deliver his State of the Union address and demand funding for his border wall and immigration reforms.
He repeatedly has railed against the migrant caravans, calling them an invasion.
One of the two bridges connecting Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass was closed and the other was reduced from four lanes of travel to two.
Stationed near the middle of the bridge, at the international line, was a force of two dozen Customs and Border Protection agents, as well as some large vans and shipping containers. Rows of concertina wire were also used.
Below the bridge, more than 20 Border Patrol and Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles were seen positioned along the riverbank.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said members of the “lawless caravan” would not be allowed to “illegally” enter the United States.
The secretary blamed Congress for the latest caravan, and said it aptly demonstrates the need for an impenetrable border wall, as Trump has demanded.
“Such caravans are the result of Congress’ inexcusable failure to fully fund a needed physical barrier and unwillingness to fix outdated laws that act as an enormous magnet for illegal aliens,” she said, adding, “This crisis won’t be solved until we have comprehensive border security.”