Tag Archives: U.S. Mexican Border

Biden to route U.S. border wall funds to military and construction site clean up

By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration will return more than $2 billion in funds allotted under his predecessor Donald Trump to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to the military and devote other remaining money to construction site clean up, the White House budget office said on Friday.

The move will return funds to 66 military projects spanning 11 states, three U.S. territories and 16 countries, the White House said in a related fact sheet. The projects include $79 million to renovate a U.S. military school in Germany and $9 million for a firing range in Indiana.

Trump, a Republican, made the wall a signature part of his presidency, saying it was needed to stop illegal immigration and drug smuggling. During his four years in office, Trump secured about $15 billion for the project, including $10 billion in redirected U.S. military funds.

Biden, a Democrat, issued an executive order on Jan. 20 – his first day in office – that paused wall construction, saying “a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”

The Biden administration said on Friday that it would use its legal authority to stop any new border wall construction while calling on Congress to redirect existing resources to technology-based border security.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Thursday that his state would build its own border wall, but whether he has the resources and legal authority to do that remains unclear. Abbott and other Republicans have criticized Biden in recent months for rolling back Trump restrictions as the number of migrants arriving at the border has reached the highest monthly levels in two decades.

After Congress declined to provide money that Trump had requested for wall construction, his administration redirected funds appropriated by lawmakers for other purposes in order to pay for the project. Democrats accused Trump at the time of exceeding his power as president.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

White House official says Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala to increase troops on borders

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration has secured agreements for Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala to place more troops on their borders, a White House official told Reuters on Monday amid the growing number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexican border.

The official did not provide any details. Earlier, White House aide Tyler Moran told MSNBC that the Biden administration had secured agreements with Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to put more troops on their own border.

Reuters was not immediately able to establish what agreements the officials were referring to or whether they go beyond existing enforcement measures in those countries.

The Mexican, Honduran and Guatemalan governments did not respond immediately to requests for comment about any new measures.

Reuters reported in March that Mexico had stepped up raids aimed at rounding up immigrants transiting illegally north toward the U.S. border, and reinforced its efforts along its border with Guatemala.

Those efforts have not yet produced significant results, and have been complicated by pandemic restrictions and new rules limiting the capacity of Mexican immigration detention centers.

In January, just before Biden took office, Guatemala deployed security forces to halt a U.S.-bound caravan of migrants, and Guatemalan government officials have vowed to keep up the pressure.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Laura Gottesdiener in Mexico City, Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa and Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City; writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Tim Ahmann)

Biden sends envoys to Mexico, Guatemala asking help on migrant flow

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – U.S. officials will ask authorities in Mexico and Guatemala to help stem migrant traffic, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday, as the Biden administration struggles to contain a burgeoning humanitarian challenge along the U.S. border with Mexico.

President Joe Biden dispatched U.S. envoys, including White House border coordinator Roberta Jacobson, to the two countries on Monday for talks on how to manage the increase in the number of migrants heading for the U.S.-Mexican border.

When asked if the U.S. delegation would seek support from local officials, Psaki told a news briefing:

“Absolutely, part of our objective as Roberta Jacobson,…conveyed when she was in here just a few weeks ago, was that we need to work in partnership with these countries to address the root causes in their countries to convey clearly and systematically that this is not the time to travel.”

Jacobson was joined by Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, and Honduran-born diplomat Ricardo Zuniga, just appointed by the State Department as the Northern Triangle special envoy.

Gonzalez will continue to Guatemala to meet Guatemalan officials, as well as representatives from civil society and non-governmental organizations.

Biden’s promise to end former President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies has been complicated by a recent spike in the number of migrants crossing the border illegally.

The increase in the number of migrants fleeing violence, natural disasters and economic hardship in Central America is testing Biden’s commitment to a more humane immigration policy.

White House spokeswoman Emily Horne said Jacobson’s goal in Mexico is developing “an effective and humane plan of action to manage migration.”

The visit was also announced by Mexico’s foreign ministry, which said the talks would take place on Tuesday.

Gonzalez’ aim in Guatemala is to “address root causes of migration in the region and build a more hopeful future in the region,” Horne said.

U.S. officials are struggling to house and process an increasing number of unaccompanied children, many of whom have been stuck in jail-like border stations for days while they await placement in overwhelmed government-run shelters.

Biden has resisted calling the border drama a crisis despite Republicans’ insistence that it fits the description.

“Children presenting at our border, who are fleeing violence, who are fleeing prosecution, who are fleeing terrible situations, is not a crisis,” Psaki told reporters.

Biden and his team had a mixed message at the outset of the border woes, saying the border was closed but that unaccompanied children would be given care.

Psaki said the Biden administration has placed 17,118 radio ads in Spanish, Portuguese and 6 indigenous languages to discourage U.S.-bound migration from Central America and Brazil. She said 589 digital ads have also been placed.

Mexico has beefed up law enforcement at its southern border to stem a sharp increase in migrants entering the country to head for the United States.

“The main issue to discuss will be cooperation for development in Central America and the south of Mexico, as well as the joint efforts for safe, orderly and regular migration,” Roberto Velasco, the top official at the Mexican foreign ministry for North America, said on Twitter.

Representatives of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean will also attend the meeting, Velasco said.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Alistair Bell)

At Texas border, joy and chaos as U.S. reunites immigrant families

Undocumented immigrants recently released from detention prepare to depart a bus depot for cities around the country in McAllen, Texas, U.S., July 18, 2018. Picture taken July 18, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elli

By Yeganeh Torbati and Loren Elliott

LOS FRESNOS, Texas (Reuters) – Luis Campos, a Dallas attorney, showed up at a Texas immigrant detention facility close to the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday morning expecting to represent a client before an immigration judge.

But his client – a mother who had been separated from her child by immigration authorities after they crossed the border illegally – was not at the Port Isabel Detention Center. For more than a day, Campos was unable to determine whether she had been released and whether she had been reunited with her child.

Campos did not fare much better with his other appointments. Of the five other clients he had been scheduled to meet with that day, four were no longer at Port Isabel, and it was unclear if they had been released or transferred to other facilities.

“We don’t know what their status is except they’re no longer in the system,” Campos said. “We don’t know where people are right now and it’s been a struggle to get information.”

Lawyers and immigrant advocates working in south Texas this week reported widespread disarray as the federal government scrambled to meet a court-imposed deadline of July 26 for reunifying families separated by immigration officials under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” measures.

Half a dozen lawyers Reuters spoke to described struggles to learn of reunification plans in advance and difficulty tracking down clients who were suddenly released or transferred to family detention centers run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The lawyers said it was often difficult to get through by telephone and that when they did the government employees often knew little about their clients’ status or location.

ICE officials did not respond to questions about the reunification process in Texas and elsewhere.

A government court filing on Thursday said that 364 reunifications had taken place so far. It was unclear from the document, filed as part of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit challenging parent-child separations at the border, exactly how many more were likely.

Of more than 2,500 parents identified as potentially eligible to be reunited with their children, 848 have been interviewed and cleared for reunification, government attorneys told the court. Another 91 have been deemed ineligible because of criminal records or for other reasons.

Undocumented immigrants recently released from detention prepare to depart a bus depot for cities around the country in McAllen, Texas, U.S., July 18, 2018. Picture taken July 18, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Undocumented immigrants recently released from detention prepare to depart a bus depot for cities around the country in McAllen, Texas, U.S., July 18, 2018. Picture taken July 18, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

BUSY SHELTERS

Evidence of the reunification efforts can be found throughout the Rio Grande Valley area, a border region that covers the southern tip of Texas and includes small towns like Los Fresnos.

Children arrive in vans at the Port Isabel Detention Center near Los Fresnos late into the night, lawyers said.

A sprawling church site in San Juan, around 60 miles (97 km) away, was designated as a migrant shelter after it became clear that a large number of reunited families would be released from Port Isabel.

The shelter has been housing between 200 and 300 adults and children on any given night this week, according to migrants who spent time there.

The same court order that required separated families to be reunited also ordered the government to stop separating new arrivals at the border and some families who have crossed in recent weeks have been detained together.

But ICE has limited facilities to house parents and children together, and strict rules apply regarding how long and under what circumstances it can keep children locked up.

Claudia Franco, waiting to board a bus at a terminal in McAllen, near San Juan, said she and her daughter traveled from Guatemala and were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol after entering the United States last week. The pair were released from custody a few days later, and Franco was given an ankle monitor during her legal fight to remain in the country.

President Donald Trump has called for an end to such swift releases, which he refers to as “catch-and-release.”

‘WILD WEST LAWYERING’

Having attorneys can make a crucial difference for Central American migrants trying to negotiate the complexities of the legal system.

Angela, a Honduran woman who declined to give her surname, had initially been found not to have a “credible fear” of returning to Honduras, something that must be established as the first step in an asylum claim.

On Monday, she appeared in immigration court with attorney Eileen Blessinger. The judge reversed that initial finding. The next day, Angela was reunited with her daughter after more than a month apart and the two will seek asylum in the Indianapolis area, she said in a phone interview from a shelter.

Lawyers said that other clients will be deprived of representation in court because of the chaotic reunification and release process.

“It’s all totally like Wild West lawyering,” said Shana Tabak, an attorney with the Tahirih Justice Center, which provides legal services to migrants. “The government is moving really quickly, without a lot of advance planning it seems.”

One urgent priority, said Tabak, was making sure immigrants who leave the area change the location of their impending proceedings to a court near their eventual destination.

But that can be difficult. On Wednesday afternoon, Campos and a colleague met with a migrant client at a shelter, and just by chance, he ran into a Honduran woman who he had met with earlier this month at Port Isabel. Unbeknownst to him, she had been released and was now with her young son. They quickly exchanged a few words.

“They were just bouncing with joy,” he said. “We agreed to talk later that day and then I couldn’t find her after that.”

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Loren Elliott, editing by Sue Horton and Rosalba O’Brien)

Migrants at U.S.-Mexico border say Trump’s tough talk won’t deter them

Border patrol agents apprehend immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

By Mica Rosenberg

MISSION, Texas (Reuters) – On Tuesday, the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to deploy military to help patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, Edwin Valdez and four other Central American migrants were walking through dense brush at a south Texas wildlife reserve, hoping to escape notice.

Border patrol agent Robert Rodriguez looks for signs of immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Border patrol agent Robert Rodriguez looks for signs of immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

The men had illegally crossed into the United States that morning, guided by a smuggler who had since abandoned them. Now they were lost and uncertain how to proceed.

In vehicles nearby, U.S. Border Patrol agents had been alerted to migrants moving through the area, and after detecting movement in the bushes, they swooped in to arrest the men.

It was business as usual in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the busiest crossing points for migrants trying to enter the United States illegally.

In just a few hours that morning, 61 migrants, including Valdez, were rounded up in the area. Ten, including four from China, were caught with the help of a tracking dog in a sugar cane field. Two Hondurans were taken into custody at a public park.

Several of those caught said they were unfazed by tough talk from Trump, who has made headlines around the world with tweets railing about border security and threatening to end the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) unless Mexico does more to “stop the big drug and people flows.”

Trump’s renewed frustration about border security, rekindled over the weekend by news of a “caravan” of Central American migrants moving through Mexico toward the U.S. border, reflects the broader frustration of his administration.

A border patrol agent apprehends immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliot

A border patrol agent apprehends immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

In the months after Trump took office, the number of migrants caught along the U.S.-Mexico border fell dramatically, hitting a low of about 15,700 in April, from more than 42,400 in January 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows.

But arrests have crept back up since, and in the first months of 2018 have reached levels at, or near, those seen during the last year of his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

Rising arrests of families and unaccompanied minors along the border are a particular concern.

In March, their numbers surpassed the previous three years and “rivaled fiscal year 2014, when we had a crisis,” Manuel Padilla, chief of the border patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, said in an interview with Reuters.

He said about families with children, who are more difficult to deport quickly, form about 49 percent of the current apprehensions in his region. He said they often walk up to the first U.S. officials they find to ask for help.

“It doesn’t matter how many agents are out there,” when it comes to families, he said, “because this population is turning themselves in.”

REVOLVING DOOR

Valdez, 20, who worked as an electrician’s assistant in his home country of El Salvador, said he previously tried to cross the border illegally in 2016.

But he was picked up by border patrol officers after wandering lost and dehydrated in the desert for four days. After six months in detention, he was deported last year, but decided to travel north again after gangs threatened him at his job.

While crossing has become more and more difficult in recent years, Valdez said, need is a powerful spur.

“Necessity forces people to leave their countries so they can bring a better life to their families,” he said. “That’s why people are willing to suffer through all this.”

After his arrest on Monday, Valdez put his personal belongings in a plastic bag, removed his shoelaces and was searched by the agents who arrested him. Then he and his companions were taken to a processing facility.

People who have been previously deported can often be quickly sent home.

Immigrants traveling with small children when caught often spend only a few days in custody, however, because of a shortage of detention facilities suitable for families and court settlements that preclude prolonged detention of minors.

Border patrol agent Sergio Ramirez talks with immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, U.S., April 2, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Border patrol agent Sergio Ramirez talks with immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, U.S., April 2, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

In the Rio Grande Valley, parents are often released with electronic ankle monitors and ordered to appear with their children in court on a specific date for deportation proceedings. Trump has railed against the practice, which he calls “catch and release.”

For migrants like Jose Romero, 27, who made the harrowing days-long trip through Mexico with his 8-year-old daughter in the back of a dark cargo truck, threats from the president are little deterrent.

In his mountain home in Honduras, Romero made just $4 a day as a farm laborer, not enough to feed his family of five, he said. After his arrest and subsequent release to wait court proceedings, he said he doubted if migrants can be deterred.

“They will keep coming,” he said, because of violence and poverty south of the border. “The people are afraid.”

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Sue Horton and Clarence Fernandez)