Tag Archives: Cubans

Over 10,000 mostly Haitian migrants sleeping under Texas bridge, more expected

By Alexandra Ulmer

CIUDAD ACUÑA, Mexico (Reuters) – Haitians fleeing a country hammered by political turmoil and two natural disasters made up most of over 10,000 migrants sleeping on the ground and desperate for food in a squalid camp under a bridge in southern Texas on Friday, in a growing humanitarian and political challenge for U.S. President Joe Biden.

The Haitians were joined by Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans under the Del Rio International Bridge connecting Mexico to south Texas. They slept under light blankets. A few pitched small tents.

More migrants were expected after long and harrowing journeys through Mexico and Central and South America. Officials on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border said most of the migrants were Haitians.

Several Haitians told Reuters they followed instructions shared on WhatsApp by other Haitians looking for a safe route to avoid being caught by Mexican authorities.

James Pierre, a 28-year-old Haitian interviewed in Del Rio, Texas, shared a WhatsApp list of 15 stops through Mexico – culminating in Ciudad Acuña, just across from Del Rio – that he said was circulating among migrants.

“Those ahead sent directions by phone. I helped people coming behind me,” Pierre said. Still, he said he got lost for days in the mountains and survived on little but water and fruit.

Haiti’s president was assassinated in July and that was in August battered by both a 7.2 magnitude earthquake and a powerful storm.

Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano said the number of migrants under the bridge that crosses into Mexico had jumped by around 2,000 during the day on Thursday, from 8,200 in the morning to 10,503 by the evening.

Most of the migrants at the camp appeared to be men, but women nursing or carrying kids also could be seen.

HUNDREDS WADE THROUGH RIO GRANDE

Reuters witnessed hundreds of migrants wading through the shallow Rio Grande River, which divides the two countries, back into Mexico to stock up on essentials they say they are not receiving on the American side.

Two Haitian migrants said a hot meal was provided by U.S. officials on Thursday night but Haitian migrant Paul Marie-Samise, 32, said he missed it.

Temperatures were forecast to stay above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) in coming days.

The U.S. Border Patrol said in a statement on Thursday it was increasing staffing in Del Rio and providing drinking water, towels and portable toilets as migrants wait to be transported to U.S. facilities.

Biden, a Democrat who took office in January, pledged a more humane approach to immigration than that of former President Donald Trump, whose fellow Republicans seized on the camp as evidence Biden’s policies were drawing more migrants.

“When you have open borders, this is what happens. This is not humane, this is not compassionate,” said Republican Senator Ted Cruz from Texas in a video on Twitter recorded under the bridge on Thursday.

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott, whose administration has arrested migrants for trespassing and is planning to build its own wall on the border after Biden halted Trump’s signature project, said in a tweet on Thursday he would sign a law to increase border security funding in the state to $3 billion.

“We’re trying to fix Biden’s failure,” Abbott tweeted.

U.S. authorities arrested more than 195,000 migrants at the southwest border in August, according to government data released on Wednesday, a slight dip from the previous month but still around 20-year-highs.

While Biden rolled back many of Trump’s immigration actions early in his presidency, he left in place a sweeping pandemic-era expulsion policy that has allowed his administration to quickly turn around most migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

The policy issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been criticized by pro-migrant groups and some Democrats as cutting off legal access to asylum. On Thursday, a U.S. federal judge the policy could no longer be applied to families.

The judge’s order takes effect in 14 days and the Biden administration may appeal.

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer in Del Rio, Texas and Ciudad Acuña, Mexico; Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Donna Bryson and Howard Goller)

U.S. ramps up returns of asylum seekers to Mexico, adding Cubans

FILE PHOTO: Migrants from Cuba are seen on the banks of the Rio Bravo river as they cross illegally into the United States to turn themselves in to request asylum in El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico June 6, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo

By Julio-Cesar Chavez and Andrew Hay

EL PASO, TEXAS/TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) – The United States is more than doubling the number of asylum seekers it returns to Mexico in one city and adding groups like Cubans as it rapidly expands a policy to make migrants wait out claims south of the border, Mexican and U.S. officials said.

The policy, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), is being applied to all Spanish-speaking asylum seekers, other than Mexicans, at three U.S.-Mexico border crossings, said a U.S. government official familiar with the program, who asked not to be named.

The Trump administration plans to expand the program, which faces court challenges, across the border to act as a deterrent to frivolous asylum claims during a surge in Central American migrant families.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said the administration was considering building temporary immigration courts along the border to process MPP returnees.

The MPP expansion follows Mexico’s agreement earlier this month to receive thousands more migrants under the program.

As of June 19, according to Mexican officials, 13,987 people had been returned to Mexico under MPP.

In its first months, the policy primarily applied to Central American migrants, but as of Monday the United States began applying it to Spanish speakers more broadly, including Cubans, said Rogelio Pinal, a municipal official in Juarez, Mexico.

Cubans, a political force in U.S. election swing state Florida, have a history of being welcomed in the United States.

Pinal said his office was told returns from El Paso to Juarez would increase to 500 per day from around 200.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the government was “actively pursuing expansion plans across the board to include all individuals unless specifically exempted,” in MPP returns.

The U.S. official said MPP would be expanded to cities in Arizona and south Texas. Mexican official confirmed new locations would include Brownsville.

Migrant advocates have raised concerns that asylum seekers have little access to legal counsel and are vulnerable in Mexican border cities, which have some of the highest homicide rates in the world.

Ruben Garcia, who runs El Paso’s largest migrant shelter, said there had been a sharp fall in the number of migrants released into the United States by U.S. authorities.

Garcia said reduced migration during summer heat played a role, but tighter immigration enforcement in Mexico and the MPP program were driving forces in the drop to around 125 releases per day from up to 700 three weeks ago.

(Reportting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso and Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; additional reporting by Dave Graham in Mexico City and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Inspired by migrant caravans, new wave of Cubans seek U.S. asylum

Cuban migrants, waiting for their appointment to request asylum in the U.S., receive food at a church being used as a shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, April 6, 2019. Picture taken April 6, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

By Julia Love

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Isel Rojas put his dream of leaving Cuba on hold when the United States ended a generous immigration policy for island residents. But watching coverage of migrant caravans heading from Central America toward the United States on Cuban television last year, he began to see a new path.

One morning in January, he woke up and told his wife he was finally ready. Fifteen days later, he was gone.

“If they can do it, why can’t we?” said Rojas, a 48-year-old who worked in agriculture in the eastern city of Holguin, recalling the images of young men and families traveling en masse to the Mexico-U.S. border.

Rojas is now waiting to apply for U.S. asylum in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, which has become a magnet for Cuban migrants.

Political repression and bleak economic prospects remain the primary reasons cited by Cubans for migrating from the Communist-ruled island, a Cold War foe of the United States. But some in Ciudad Juarez say news of the caravans also motivated them, giving them the impression the United States was accepting migrants.

Since early last year, the caravans have been a frequent target of U.S. President Donald Trump as he advocates for stricter immigration policies. Critics say the president’s statements about the caravans, including a series of angry tweets, have ironically enlarged the groups and publicized asylum as a possible avenue to legal status.

“The person who created the media coverage and who drove the issue of the caravans has been President Trump,” Tonatiuh Guillen, the head of Mexico’s National Migration Institute, said on local radio last week.

The addition of Cubans to those flows is adding to the pressure on already overwhelmed shelters and border authorities in Mexico and the United States. More than 100,000 people were apprehended or presented themselves to authorities in March, the White House said on Friday, calling it the highest number in a decade. Trump has threatened a border shutdown or tariffs on Mexico in retaliation.

What’s more, some say Trump’s harder line on Cuban relations has contributed to a sense of gloom on the economically weak and tightly controlled island.

The White House and the Cuban government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mexico’s migration institute declined to comment.

‘TREATED LIKE EVERYONE ELSE’

Like Rojas, many Cubans who reached northern Mexico in recent months ultimately traveled with a smaller group, and caravans were not a factor for all who left. But a caravan of 2,600 migrants currently contained by authorities in southern Mexico, the largest this year, includes dozens from the island. Mexican immigration officials said they flew some 60 Cubans home on Friday.

In Ciudad Juarez, Cubans represent 75 to 80 percent of some 3,600 migrants in town, said Enrique Valenzuela, director of the state commission for population. The wait to apply for asylum is about two months, shelter directors say.

The bottleneck highlights a new reality: Cubans do not enjoy the same advantages they once did in the U.S. immigration system.

“For the first time this year, Cubans are being treated like everyone else,” said Wilfredo Allen, a Miami-based lawyer who works with Cuban migrants. “The special door for the Cubans has already closed.”

In 2017, U.S. President Barack Obama ended the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed Cubans who reached U.S. soil to stay but returned any intercepted at sea, triggering a decline in immigration from the island.

In the first five months of fiscal-year 2019, 6,289 Cubans turned up at ports of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border without papers. That number is on track to nearly double the total for the whole of fiscal-year 2018, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

While Cubans generally face slightly better chances of receiving asylum than Central Americans because their tales of political persecution are often more clear-cut, success is anything but assured, Allen said.

Allen estimates only 20 to 30 percent of his Cuban clients will win their cases.

That message has not reached those in Ciudad Juarez, many of whom sold their vehicles, businesses or homes to finance the trip. Some have literally bet the farm.

“They say that we have priority, that (the United States) will accept us in one form or another,” said Rojas, who sold almost half his cattle. “They always accept us.”

A NEW ROUTE

Cubans lucky enough to get a U.S. visa, to visit family for example, can fly there legally and are eligible to apply for residency after a year in the United States. For most though, reaching the United States is no easy feat.

Even before “wet foot, dry foot” ended, Cubans began forging new routes, flying into countries in Central and South America with loose visa requirements and then heading north. Only a few countries, such as Guyana, do not require visas for Cubans.

Last year, Panama made it easier for Cubans to come to the country to shop, creating another opening for some from the island to reach Central America.

Arasay Sanchez, 33, said she was browsing the internet in a park one day when she saw a story about the caravans.

After selling her house and most of her belongings, Sanchez flew into Panama on Jan. 25, she said.

She relied on a seven-page guide she inherited from Cubans who had traveled to the United States, detailing everything from where to sleep to where to buy a phone. On the trail, it was among her most valuable possessions – she carried it in her clothes.

The route ended in Ciudad Juarez, regarded by many Cubans as a safer and more orderly place to seek asylum than other more crowded Mexican border crossings, despite its reputation as one of the world’s most violent cities. Ciudad Juarez, just south of El Paso, Texas, received relatively few asylum seekers until late last year.

Many are dismayed by the long wait they find, shelter directors say, and they are increasingly concerned about safety after reports of Cubans going missing in Mexico. Few leave the shelters, 10 migrants said in interviews.

Sanchez and her partner arrived in Ciudad Juarez in late February, moving from shelter to shelter and struggling with spicy Mexican food.

“Even the candy” has chile, she said, clutching the extra folds of fabric in her jeans to show she had lost weight.

Experts do not expect the flow of Cuban migrants to ebb anytime soon. Obama made it easier for Americans to travel to the island, generating new business. But that money dried up after Trump tightened the rules, said Pedro Freyre, a lawyer who studies the U.S.-Cuba relationship.

What is more, a gradual opening of the island’s private sector triggered a backlash from conservatives, creating headaches for small businesses, Freyre said.

Reaching the United States would end a long quest for Reinaldo Ramirez, a 51-year-old construction contractor from the western town of Jaguey Grande. Starting in 2006, he tried and failed to reach Florida seven times by boat – including the day Obama canceled “wet foot, dry foot.”

The new route has been just as arduous. After flying into Guyana in September, Ramirez and his wife had to hike across the Darien Gap, a remote stretch of jungle straddling Panama and Colombia. After they crossed the first time, Panamanian authorities deported them to Colombia, forcing them to repeat the trek.

Ramirez arrived in Ciudad Juarez about three weeks ago, and hundreds of asylum seekers are ahead of him in line. But he cannot help but feel that he is close.

“I’ve almost achieved my objective, my American dream,” he said.

(Reporting by Julia Love; additional reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez, Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City, Sarah Marsh in Havana, Kristina Cooke in San Francisco and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Peter Cooney)