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ASYLUM-SEEKERS AT THE US-MEXICO BORDER WORRY ABOUT THEIR NEXT MOVE:
‘WE CANNOT RETURN’  
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Lorena Figueroa and Amanda Ulrich
June 5, 2024
The Guardian
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_ People at the border reel after hearing about Biden’s order and
consider the CBP One app, where they can go and what’s next _

People huddle in what little shade there is next to the border wall
in Jacumba, California. Joe Biden has signed an executive order
tightening restrictions on those seeking asylum into the US. ,
Photograph: Allison Dinner/EPA

 

Angel Ramos Girón was searching for a gap to breach the coils of
concertina wire standing between him and the huge US fence near gate
36.

The port of entry divides the US from Ciudid Juárez in Mexico, where
he stood on Tuesday afternoon looking towards El Paso, its American
sister city in Texas.

At that moment, he was sitting under a small bush just south of the
Rio Grande that marks the US-Mexico border, trying to get a moment of
relief from the heatwave that has prompted warnings
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107F temperatures this week.

The 27-year-old from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, had been trying to figure
out for the past week how to cross into the US without authorization
and ask for asylum. He’d planned to get through the now-ubiquitous
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wire that day but had just found out that everything had changed.

Girón and other migrants standing near gate 36 were in a state of
shock when told by a reporter on Tuesday afternoon that Joe Biden
had just announced
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new executive order to close the border to asylum seekers entering the
country illegally if numbers get too high – and it would take
immediate effect.

“I’m screwed,” he said in Spanish, dismay on his face. “I
don’t know what to do and I don’t have any money, anything
left.”

[A man sits at the base of a metal support structure in the hot sun.]

A man waits for US border patrol after crossing the US-Mexico border
in Jacumba, California. Photograph: Allison Dinner/EPA

The new order
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designed to temporarily block all requests for asylum once the average
number of daily encounters of people crossing outside lawful ports of
entry reaches 2,500. The border would reopen only once that number
falls to 1,500. It was not immediately clear how federal agents dotted
along the almost 2,000 miles of the US-Mexico border, which crosses
four US states, will know the tally has been reached and refuse to
accept an asylum request from someone turning themselves in
and asking for protection
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international law.

According to the White House, migrants who want to seek asylum legally
will have the opportunity to use the US Customs and Border
Protection’s CBP One mobile app
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schedule an appointment with US authorities.

It sounds simple, but there are fewer than 1,500 appointments issued a
day and many thousands of people trying to obtain one. Some wait
months
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south of the border, often sleeping rough or in overcrowded shelters,
trying every day without success. And the app has also had
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glitches.

“Honestly, we did not consider using it. Besides, it would take
forever to get an appointment,” said Salome Hernandez, who was
standing just south of the border, not far from Girón, with her
little sister, mother, cousin and grandfather.

The 20-year-old and her family had to flee from Medellín, Colombia,
in late May, she said, after her grandfather received death threats
for being a leader of the Community Action Board, a social
organization there.

Hernandez’s grandfather, who did not give his name for safety
reasons, said that men in military fatigues gave him an ultimatum –
to drop his environmental activism to stop deforestation in a natural
reserve in the Valle del Cauca and Riseralda region, or face being
killed.

[Three people walk through brush and dirt with backpacks on]

People trudge through the brush in Ciudad Juárez near the US-Mexico
border. Biden’s restrictions would cap asylum applications at 2,500
a day. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

[A uniformed official stands behind a wall of concertina wire]

Texas national guard and state police prepare to prevent crossings
from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, after Biden signed an executive order
restricting border crossings. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

“We do not have a plan, and we cannot return,” the 64-year-old man
said, upon learning about the new executive order. “This is a low
blow.”

Hernandez’s cousin, Eduardo, said he was going to persuade his
family to cross illegally into the US through New Mexico’s desert to
the west of Ciudad Juárez and El Paso.

The desert anywhere
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the border can be dangerous
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but just last weekend border patrol reported four deaths of migrants
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heat and dehydration in that very stretch of desert Eduardo was now
desperately contemplating.

Eduardo said he was hoping the group could get to New York or Denver,
where they have family. He asked if Denver was walkable. It’s about
650 miles away.

Across the north side of the river, on US soil but up against the huge
fence, wire and a closed gate, was a group of about 20 people, hoping
to get through but also now no longer able to request asylum without
an official appointment, as daily numbers have been much higher than
2,500 people. There was no shade and they had been in the blasting sun
for hours, with kids and at least one baby visible among the group.

Ramos Girón also said the desert is now his last resort. “I’ve
gone through a lot to get here. The sun doesn’t scare me,” he
said.

He had been working odd jobs the past two months since he arrived in
Mexico to support himself and save money to send back to his wife,
nine-year-old girl and a 17-month-old baby boy he left behind in
Honduras.

The 150 Honduran lempiras, about $6, that he earned daily as a farmer
in Honduras harvesting coffee beans and corn did not cover the basic
needs to support his family, he said.

“I prefer to die trying than for my family to die of hunger,”
Girón said.

In contrast to the shock and desperation apparent on the Mexican side
of the border on Tuesday, warned about
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experts and railed against
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progressives, the US side appeared calm.

Biden’s immigration order: a re-election bid that could result in
‘suffering and death’
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Read more
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More than 700 miles west of El Paso, at the San Ysidro port of entry
between Tijuana in northern Mexico and California just south of San
Diego, it was business as usual.

This corridor is one of the busiest land crossings in the world, and
the San Diego sector has seen a large increase in people seeking
asylum
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the last few months.

[People line up at a gate with Mexican and American flags in the
background.]

People walk to cross at the San Ysidro crossing port on the US-Mexico
border, as seen from Tijuana, Mexico, on 4 June. Photograph:
Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images

But on Tuesday it was calm, and families and individuals who live in
the area were going about their business, many walking across the
bridge that connects the two countries. Red trolleys at the San Ysidro
transit center waited to take passengers to other cities in southern
California, and groups of people filtered in and out of the small
shops near the border, changing cash at money exchange stores and
ordering food at McDonald’s.

For many, walking or driving across the border is a regular part of
their week.

Abel Walser, a 26-year-old from Oceanside who has Mexican heritage,
was crossing into the US with a friend around noon. “This country
was built to be a melting pot” he said, adding that he knows people
who initially came to the US illegally but have since endured the
extremely difficult, years-long process to become a US citizen.

For Gustavo Rodriguez, who lives in Tijuana but was born in San Diego,
the president’s order was good news. “I feel that it’s getting
out of hand,” he said of recent immigration numbers.
“Unfortunately, maybe there are some people who really need
[asylum], but we’re just getting swamped with people.”

Meanwhile, Erika Palomo was passing through the palm tree-lined
transit center on her way back to the Mexico side.

“I’ve seen all the people trying to cross and get better
opportunities, especially kids,” she said. “It’s a lot of
people.” But she added that she believed mothers and children should
be given extra consideration when it comes to asylum.

On the Tijuana side of the border, cars waiting to enter the US were
lined up as far as the eye could see. Men and women hawked churros,
candy and Mexico-themed trinkets to the drivers. The passport
checkpoint was brisk, but a different line could be seen, a few dozen
people presumably without documentation, waiting with suitcases and
pressed against a wall for a scrap of shade. Their fate was far less
certain even than it had been 24 hours before.

* US-Mexico border
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* asylum
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* executive orders
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* President Joe Biden
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