US border braces for four years of brutality: ‘If they catch us, what will happen to my little girl?’ | US

For the thousands of migrants waiting in Mexico for a CBP One application to give them an appointment to request humanitarian clearance to enter the United States, obtaining such clearance is more pressing than ever now that Donald Trump won the election on a promise to end it. program and carry out mass deportations. The Joe Biden administration, which launched the free tool nearly two years ago to manage the flow of people arriving at the border to claim asylum, says most app users book appointments in less than eight weeks. But many of those waiting in Ciudad Juarez say they have waited for months without success in what they consider a lottery; a lottery that has now become a race against time with the finish line on January 20, the day the Republican takes office.

“I’ve been waiting a year for an appointment at CBP One in Mexico,” says Damaris Godoy, a Venezuelan migrant who participates in an embroidery workshop every Thursday at the Ciudad Juarez Cathedral while her 8-year-old daughter, Carlis, makes crafts. with a group of migrant children. This 34-year-old woman decided to leave Colombia, where she migrated in 2016 due to the Venezuelan crisis, along with her husband and the youngest of three daughters, encouraged by her sister living in Miami. Now, after crossing the dangerous Darien jungle and spending 12 months in Mexico, she lives with the uncertainty of whether they will be able to cross the border before Trump arrives at the White House. “We want to enter legally to give our children a future, but we are afraid because he says he doesn’t like migrants and even less us Venezuelans because some have done bad things,” she says.

Migrants like her wait in fear not only because of Donald Trump’s promises to end CBP One and other humanitarian programs benefiting 1.3 million people or to begin mass deportations, but also because of memories of a first-term president who won two elections with anti-immigrant rhetoric and used violence as a deterrent, pursuing policies that separated thousands of children from their undocumented parents at the border. Six years later, hundreds of these families still have not been reunited because the government lost track of the parents after they were deported, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine they will ever be able to do so.

That’s why Damaris wants to make an appointment before January to legally cross the border and apply for a work permit. “If not, we will be very worried because we don’t know what will happen to us if we are caught by US immigration authorities. What will happen to my little girl? she asks. “They can take it away from us because I heard Trump did that in the past.” As migrants ponder what will happen when the Republican returns to the White House, organizations helping them are trying to join forces against promises of mass deportations, as well as a possible increase in the flow of people before January 20. or introducing new restrictions that could lead to a new crisis at the border.

Laboratory of “externalization of boundaries”

“We understand that this will be a difficult time. At the border, we are used to living in such an emergency situation, especially over the last five years,” admits Blanca Navarrete, director of the Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción (DHIA). This 43-year-old woman, who has dedicated more than half her life to migrants in Ciudad Juarez, recounts episodes that have shaken the possibilities of this city, separated from the Texas city of El Paso by the Rio Grande River and an ever-growing wall. with barbed wire.

First, Navarrete recalls, there were migrant caravans that brought together thousands of people seeking protection on their way north. Then came the Migrant Protection Protocols, under which Trump sent more than 71,000 people to Mexico to wait their turn to claim asylum and which created huge refugee camps along the border. Along with the Covid pandemic came Title 42, under which the Republican president closed the border, citing public health concerns. And they had to deal with thousands of confused migrants whom Washington was sending on so-called “lateral flights,” in which migrants who entered the U.S. illegally are sent back to Mexico through other points along the border.

For Dirvin Luis García Gutiérrez, head of the Migrant Assistance Program of the Juárez State Population Council (Conapo), the Trump presidency was a kind of test laboratory for the “externalization of borders” to other countries that cities in northern Mexico perceived as better. they could. “The return of foreigners to national territory from the United States is something that has never been seen before, never agreed upon or implemented,” says a Chihuahua state official. What was most shocking to him was that side flights began accepting 200 to 300 migrants a day: processing so many confused, traumatized and sometimes sick migrants was beyond the city’s capacity. “This was a real humanitarian crisis. I think it was the closest thing I saw to war,” he recalls.

But the Trump presidency has also left positives at the border, Blanca Navarrete adds, such as the support of activists, religious groups, human rights defenders and international organizations who have come to support them. “I remember my helplessness because we had never been so close to the limit, but at the same time I also remember a lot of solidarity from the people who went to the Santa Fe International Bridge with food for those who were waiting to enter. to ask for asylum,” she notes. “Though, sadly, that solidarity later began to fade as Trump’s hate speech finally managed to infiltrate the narrative.”

“The outlook is difficult because we have noticed that there are now even obstacles to legalizing one’s status in Mexico,” admits her work partner Ciela Avila, the 27-year-old daughter of an Oaxacan migrant who came to Ciudad Juarez decades ago with the intention of moving to United States, but ended up staying in a border town. “At least from my perspective, the only hope I see is that the people who are working on this issue don’t run out of energy.”

New emergency?

These organizations now feel like they are experiencing the calm before the storm. Shelters in Chihuahua state are at just over 50% occupancy, and illegal border crossings have also dropped to their lowest level since 2020, which the organizations attribute in part to the implementation of the CBP One app, according to Conapo. , but also to strengthen control by Mexican authorities to prevent migrants from approaching the northern border and distributing them to southern states. However, recently they have also noted an increase in the number of kidnappings both at the entrance from Durango to Chihuahua and at various points in Ciudad Juarez, where they are holding more than 100 foreigners in so-called “safe houses”, a sign that “organized crime is already in control this human smuggling business,” explains Diana Solis of DHIA. There has also been a surge in deaths in remote desert areas, where migrants are likely being forced to flee violence and increased border controls.

Nearly two months before Trump returns to the White House, Juarez is preparing to deal with a possible new emergency at the border. And while people here don’t believe the Republican promise to deport the more than 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to live in the United States will be feasible, everyone understands that the city is not prepared for events like those it has experienced in the past. . “No shelter is ready to accommodate a large wave of people,” says Pastor Juan Fierro, director of El Buen Samaritano. “If they plan to deport everyone across the northern border of Mexico, it will be a problem for us in the sense that we don’t have the capacity to deal with it. This will cause chaos because they will live under bridges, on abandoned farms where they can hide from the cold, and the National Institute of Migration will also start deporting them,” he says.

Their shelter, which could accommodate up to 180 people, housed up to 250 people at a time. Now there are only 42 of them, most of them families of Venezuelan migrants, such as Barbara Mendoza, her husband and their children Matias, eight, and Zahira, born on the road to Juarez, in Durango, 19 days ago; there are Central Americans such as Fidela Baldano, who fled Honduras 14 months ago with her two daughters, ages six and sixteen, after gangs killed one of her sons and tried to recruit the other; and Mexicans displaced by violence, such as Itzel from Iguala (Guerrero), who also migrated with her two children, following in the footsteps of her husband, who moved to the United States after receiving threats from organized crime. “He told us to make an appointment, that they were going to cancel (the program), and then what should we do,” says the woman, who, like the other migrants at the shelter, is hoping to make an appointment to enter the U.S. with CBP One. “If they cancel the program, we don’t know what to do. Only God knows.”

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