EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) — Daniel Bermudez's family fled Venezuela and headed to the United States to seek asylum when immigration officials stopped the freight train they were taking through Mexico.
His wife tried to explain that her family had permission to go to the United States, but instead they flew her to Mexico's southern border as part of a wave of enforcement actions that US officials say have contributed to a sharp decline in the number of migrants. Illegal border crossings.
In addition to forcing migrants off trains, Mexico has also resumed flights and buses to the southern part of the country, and has begun sending some of them back to their countries of origin. Venezuela.
Even if temporary, the decline in illegal crossings is welcome news for the White House. President Joe Biden's administration is Locked in conversations With Senate negotiators on restricting asylum and $110 billion in aid Ukraine And Israel Hanging in the balance.
Bermudez said his wife was separated from her family when she spoke to authorities while he was collecting his stepson and their belongings. He wanted to run, but his wife said they shouldn't because they had followed procedures by making an appointment with U.S. immigration authorities.
I told her: Don't trust them. “Let's go to the jungle,” Bermudez said, adding that other migrants had fled. He remembers her telling him: “Why would they send us back if we had an appointment?”
Last week, Bermudez, his stepson and two other relatives were waiting for her at a shelter in the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras as she boarded the bus hoping to make the appointment.
Mexico's immigration agency sent at least 22 flights from the U.S. border region to southern cities during the last 10 days of December, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data. Most were from Piedras Negras, which is across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas.
Mexico also ran twice Removal trips to Venezuela With 329 immigrants. This trip included the visit of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Mexico City on December 28 to confront unprecedented crossings into the United States.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the financial shortfall prompted the immigration agency Suspension of deportations and other operations Solved. He did not provide details.
The number of arrests for illegal crossing into the United States from Mexico fell to about 2,500 on Monday, down from more than 10,000 on several days in December, according to US authorities. In the Border Patrol's busiest area, arrests totaled 13,800 during the seven-day period ending Friday, down 29% from 19,400 two weeks ago, according to Sector Chief John Maudlin in Tucson, Arizona.
The decline prompted US Customs and Border Protection to reopen the port of entry in Lukeville, Arizona, the following Thursday Close for a month On the most direct route from Phoenix to the nearest beaches. The United States also restored operations at Eagle Pass and three other sites.
Merchants in the city of Eagle Pass, which has a population of about 30,000 people, saw a “huge hit” in sales while a bridge was closed to automobile traffic so border agents could be reassigned to help deal with traffic, Maverick County Judge Ramsay English Cantu said. immigrants.
“We pretty much survive everything that comes from the Mexican side,” he said.
Last month, CBP resumed cargo crossings at Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, after Close for five days US officials said it was in response to as many as 1,000 migrants riding a single train through Mexico before trying to walk across the border.
In Piedras Negras, it was housing about 200 migrants on Thursday, down from 1,500 migrants recently.
Among them was Manuel Rodriguez, 40, who said his family would not miss their appointment to seek asylum through… The US government's CBP One app. He said the appointment was registered with his in-laws, who were deported to Venezuela after the authorities boarded the bus they were traveling on.
“It was all in her name and she lost everything,” Rodriguez said.
The proposals being discussed by White House and Senate negotiators include new expulsion authority that would deny rights to seek asylum if illegal border crossings reach a certain threshold. Any such authority would almost certainly depend on Mexico's willingness to take back non-Mexicans who enter the United States illegally, which Mexico now does to a limited extent.
Mexico's support was crucial in reversing Trump-era policies that forced 70,000 asylum seekers to flee. Wait in Mexico For hearings in US Immigration Court and denial of asylum rights During the Covid-19 pandemic.
Andrew Seeley, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., cautioned against overestimating Mexico's role in the recent decline in traffic. Panama reported that fewer than 25,000 migrants had passed through the corridor Darren the forest In December, it is almost half the level of October and a sign that fewer people are leaving South America for the United States. Migration typically declines in December amid holidays and cold weather.
“The United States is able to rely on Mexico to achieve a short-term impact on migration at the border, but the long-term impacts are not always clear,” Seeley said.
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Spagat reported from San Diego. Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed.
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