I Crossed the Border for the First Time, and I Wasn’t on Vacation
Traveling to the US-Mexico border to find out about the border crisis firsthand
Last Thursday, Title 42 officially ended. Thousands of people made the dangerous trek from places like Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Haiti, and elsewhere to the US border on the impression that it would be easier for them to be granted asylum without Title 42, but that impression wasn’t always correct. Now, thousands of people live in a makeshift tent city on the border in Matamoros, and those who do make it to the other side are stuck in shelters, bus stations, gas stations, and wherever else they can find to sleep.
Immigration Policy
Title 42 was the COVID-era policy that essentially turned away anyone who applied for asylum ostensibly because of the pandemic. Anyone who tried to cross during this time was immediately turned back.
Before Title 42, there was Trump and his harsh immigration policies involving family separation, the militarization of the border, and other dehumanizing means to discourage migration. Now, in the aftermath of Title 42, the Biden administration has rephrased the Trump policies and implemented them to the same effect except with the impression that they are somehow less tough on immigrants. The Biden administration, however, sent 1,500 new troops to the border, bringing the total to 4,000, in anticipation of an influx of migrants.
Trump’s policy was challenged in court and lost, and Biden’s policy already has a lawsuit against it by the ACLU that was launched as soon as the law went into effect. One important facet of this law is that it requires migrants to provide proof that they applied for asylum in a third country (not their home country or the US) and were rejected before they apply for asylum in the United States.
Another aspect is that customs now only allows appointments to be made to apply for asylum through an app on a mobile phone. Most migrants are robbed multiple times on their journey, and access to phones is scarce in the camp. This means that migrants have to have access to a phone (it reportedly works best on iPhones), have access to wifi, and be able to secure a time slot for an appointment before they are all filled, forcing migrants to wait for an indeterminate period of time.
This confusion certainly shares some of the blame for the border crisis, not to mention the international policies of the US towards these countries and climate change that are also driving forces of migration to the global north countries.
Brownsville, Texas
On Friday, a team of journalists and I headed down for a rainy weekend in Brownsville, Texas to highlight the voices of these immigrants and to see what was really going on.
Our first stop was a migrant shelter that had been taking in people who were recently granted asylum and helping secure transportation for them to meet with their sponsors in different parts of the US. Though we were not allowed to go inside the shelter itself, we spoke to several migrants at a convenience store next door, who were staying at the shelter.
One migrant we spoke to, Umberto, came from Venezuela on a 30-day journey to the United States, and when he got here, he witnessed a tragedy.
He told us that one day while he was walking with his friends, waiting for a bus ride, he heard the sound of an engine getting louder. By pure instinct, he stepped to the side, turned, and witnessed eight of his fellow migrants get run over and killed by an SUV. When we spoke to him, he had been at the camp for over two weeks because he had to stay and be a witness to the crash.
A memorial sits at the spot of the crash, and the lives of the migrants in the camp continue pushing forward. Umberto said that he is focused on making the best life he can in the US, but he can’t get the images of that tragic sight out of his head.
After asking the migrants where to head next for more people to interview, we headed to La Plaza, a bus station right near the border where hundreds of migrants were camped out. As we approached it, we noticed that the gas station across the street also had migrants camped out, and we spoke to some people there.
Some were giving haircuts, talking, and passing the time until their bus arrived for them to be taken to their next destination. We asked if anyone knew where the migrant camp we had heard about on the other side of the border was, and they gave us directions.
Matamoros, Tamaulipas
This was when I made my first journey across the border. We followed the directions we were given and crossed, turning left over a flooded street, and walking a few blocks down. The camp was impossible to miss.
We walked up a large concrete ramp that led to a vast tent city that stretched as far as the eye could see and went all the way up against the US-Mexico border. There were tents, tarps held up by sticks, and even advertisements that were torn down and used as makeshift shelters. The ground was muddy and there were several flooded tents with belongings still in them. As it poured down and we walked into the camp, people passed by in flip-flops and Crocs covered in mud, and they wore trash bags as improvised ponchos.
There was one large water receptacle in the middle of the camp. One migrant, Laura, who made the journey with her husband and three-year-old child, told us that a truck comes by once a day to fill it up, but there is not enough water for everybody there, and not everybody has a receptacle to collect water in.
On the other hand, there was music emanating from several of the tents and people cooking with what they had. The people we spoke to didn’t seem to let it all get to them as they made the best of their situation and found community in the large group of migrants who they lived with in the camp.
People had to wait in the camp anywhere from a few days to ten months to secure an appointment for asylum, and the people in the camp had no intention of leaving until they were able to secure entry into the US.
The migrants we spoke to were also critical of how inhumane and difficult the process is intentionally made. Many people had been robbed and couldn’t get an appointment until they got a cell phone, but they were also robbed of any money they had that would allow them to buy a phone. Most of the migrants came from countries that are heavily sanctioned by the United States, which creates a difficult situation for people in those countries and causes migration.
Above all, the migrants wanted the system to be organized and clear. They expressed that it would be much better if they were told who does and who does not qualify in an organized and dignified manner because as it stands, they are given false hope. So, they make this incredibly long journey just to be stuck in a tent on the border and be unable to go back to their own country or enter the United States.
Conclusion
The precarious situation that these migrants have been put in is inhumane and unnecessary. The Biden administration promised that it would be better with regard to immigration policy, but it has done nothing but maintain the policies of Trump and continue to militarize the border and criminalize people who are just trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.
The United States interferes with the internal affairs of countries in the global south, sanctions their economies to prevent growth, and causes human suffering on a scale that prompts thousands of people to journey on foot and bus for months to arrive at the US border just for a chance to be let in.
This trip to the US-Mexico border has been an eye-opening one. It is easy to learn about the border and have an opinion on this or that policy, but it is another thing to look real people in the eyes who are living in tents in the mud and talk to them about their experience. The sanctions on countries that the US doesn’t like ultimately does nothing but hurt the everyday people of those countries, and the sanctions have to end. The border policy that criminalizes these people and arms border towns to the teeth does nothing but sow xenophobia and cause tragedies like the car crash outside the shelter, and these policies have to end. This situation is untenable, and as the people of the United States, we have a responsibility to do something about it.
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