Thread: 'All we want is to be safe': Migrants push north after end of Title 42

'All we want is to be safe': Migrants push north after end of Title 42



Story by MEGAN JANETSKY, Associated Press • 3h ago

May 13, 2023







Venezuelan migrants, using a wrap and a towel, respectively, as protection from the rain, consult the CBPOne app, on the banks of the Rio Grande, in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. As the U.S. ended its pandemic-era immigration restrictions, migrants are adapting to new asylum rules and legal pathways meant to discourage illegal crossings. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press


MEXICO CITY (AP) — For weeks, Solangel Contreras raced.

The Venezuelan migrant and her family of 22 trudged through the dense jungles of the Darien Gap and hopped borders across Central America.

They joined thousands of other migrants from across the Hemisphere in a scramble to reach the United States-Mexico border and request asylum.

They raced, unsure what changing migratory rules and the end of a pandemic-era border restriction, Title 42, would mean for their chances at a new life in the U.S.

But after missing that cutoff, robbed in Guatemala and crossing into Mexico shortly after the program ended Thursday night, Contreras, 33, had only one certainty in her mind: “We’re going to keep going.”





Tents are set up on the banks of the Rio Grande at a makeshift migrant camp, in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. As the U.S. ended its pandemic-era immigration restrictions, migrants are adapting to new asylum rules and legal pathways meant to discourage illegal crossings. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press


Confusion has rippled from the U.S.-Mexico border to migrant routes across the Americas, as migrants scramble to understand complex and ever-changing policies. And while Title 42 has come to an end, the flow of migrants headed north has not.





A Venezuelan migrant uses an emergency blanket as cover from the rain, near the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. As the U.S. ended its pandemic-era immigration restrictions, migrants are adapting to new asylum rules and legal pathways meant to discourage illegal crossings. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press


From the rolling mountains and jungles in Central America to the tops of trains roaring through Mexico, migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and beyond push forward on their journeys.

“We’ve already done everything humanly possible to get where we are,” Contreras said, resting in a park near a river dividing Mexico and Guatemala.

The problem, say experts, is that while migration laws are changing, root causes pushing people to flee their countries in record numbers only stretch on.

“It doesn’t appear to be the case that this is going to curb the push or pull factors for migration from Central America, South America and other parts of the world,” said Falko Ernst, senior analyst for International Crisis Group in Mexico. “The incentives for people to flee and seek refuge in safer havens in the United States are still in place.”

For Contreras, that push came after her brother was killed in Ecuador for not paying extorsions to a criminal group. The family had been living in a small coastal town in the south after fleeing economic crisis in Venezuela two years earlier.






Venezuelan migrants wrapped in blankets form a circle round a pan of scrambled eggs, on a rain-soaked surface near the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. As the U.S. ended its pandemic-era immigration restrictions, migrants are adapting to new asylum rules and legal pathways meant to discourage illegal crossings. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press


Others, like 25-year-old migrant Gerardo Escobar left in search of a better future after struggling to make ends meet in Venezuela like Contreras’ family.

Escobar trekked along train tracks Friday morning just outside Mexico City, with 60 other migrants, including families and small children. They hoped to climb aboard a train migrants have used for decades to carry them on their dangerous journey.

Escobar was among many to say he had no clue what the end of Title 42 would mean, and he didn’t particularly care.

Related video: Thousands of migrants apprehended at border after Title 42 lifts (NBC News)





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“My dream is to get a job, eat well, help my family in Venezuela,” he said. “My dream is to move forward.”
Despite misinformation prompting a rush to the border last week, analysts and those providing refuge to migrants said that they don’t expect new policies to radically stem the flow of migrants.
Title 42 allowed authorities to use a public health law to rapidly expel migrants crossing over the border, denying them the right to seek asylum. U.S. officials turned away migrants more than 2.8 million times under the order.
New rules strip away that ability to simply expel asylum seekers, but add stricter consequences to those not going through official migratory channels. Migrants caught crossing illegally will not be allowed to return for five years and can face criminal prosecution if they do.
The Biden administration has also set caps on the amount of migrants allowed to seek asylum.
At the same time, Biden is likely to continue American pressure on Mexico and other countries to make it harder for migrants to move north.
Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard said they don't agree with the Biden administration’s decision to continue to put up migratory barriers.
“Our position is the opposite, but we respect their (US) jurisdiction,” Ebrard said.
Yet in a news briefing on Friday, he announced Mexico would carry out speedier deportations, and that it would no longer give migrants papers to cross through Mexico.
While the new rules likely won’t act as a strong deterrent, Ebrard and the head of a migrant shelter in Guatemala said they saw a drop in the number of migrants they encountered immediately following the rush on the U.S. border. Though the shelter leader said numbers have been slowly picking up.
Still, migrants continued to make it across the U.S. border, even as the new rules were announced. At a cemetery near Roma, Texas, about 60 migrants who had crossed the Rio Bravo were waiting to be processed around midnight. They included a large group of Chinese migrants who huddled for cover under a driving rain.





A Venezuelan migrant works to repair a leaky tent, during a rain shower on the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. As the U.S. ended its pandemic-era immigration restrictions, migrants are adapting to new asylum rules and legal pathways meant to discourage illegal crossings. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press


Another member of the group, a Guatemalan who left her country to escape an abusive husband, crossed the river with her four-year-old son. With the rules changing, she was unsure if she’d qualify for any asylum help.





Venezuelan migrants sit along a building wall as they take cover from the rain, near the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. As the U.S. ended its pandemic-era immigration restrictions, migrants are adapting to new asylum rules and legal pathways meant to discourage illegal crossings. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press


Ernst, of International Crisis Group, warned that such measures could make the already deadly journey even more dangerous.

“You’ll see an increase in populations that remain vulnerable for criminal groups to prey on, to recruit from and make a profit from,” he said. “It could just feed into the hands of these criminal groups.”






A Venezuelan migrant stands wrapped in a beach towel, on the rain-soaked banks of the Rio Grande, in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. As the U.S. ended its pandemic-era immigration restrictions, migrants are adapting to new asylum rules and legal pathways meant to discourage illegal crossings. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press


Meanwhile, Contreras continues trucking forward alongside many other migrants, even with no clear pathway forward and little information about what awaits them at the border.

It’s worth it, she said, to give a better life to small children traveling with them.

“We’ve fought a lot for them (the kids)," she said. “All we want is to be safe, a humble home where they can study, where they can eat well. We’re not asking for much. We’re just asking for peace and safety.”

——

Associated Press journalists contributed from Marco Ugarte in Huehuetoca, Mexico, Edgar H. Clemente in Tapachula, Mexico, Mark Stevenson in Mexico City, and Colleen Long in Washington. Janetsky reported from Mexico City.





A Venezuelan migrant couple pose for a selfie on the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Friday, May 12, 2023, a day after pandemic-related asylum restrictions called Title 42 were lifted. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press






A migrant sleeps in a tent on a bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Friday, May 12, 2023, the day after pandemic-related asylum restrictions called Title 42 were lifted. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press







Venezuelan migrants line up to receive food and water from U.N volunteers, near the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. As the U.S. ended its pandemic-era immigration restrictions, migrants are adapting to new asylum rules and legal pathways meant to discourage illegal crossings. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)© Provided by The Associated Press


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...9069c5c3&ei=44

These third world, 3rd grade uneducated idiots, have no idea what it costs to live here. It is not cheap, we cannot afford our own housing, medical bills, and food. They have no money, continue to romp in the mud and make more mouths they cannot feed. There is nothing "humanitarian" about that. It is sickening what they do to their own children they pump out like a Pez dispenser.

We have no "humble" home you fools. Our inner cities are full of crime! We do not want or need more of it.

Where is a "humble" home for our homeless, our seniors, and our veterans.

Chicago is not "safe", neither is Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, New York city, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, Houston, San Antonia, New Orleans, Austin, Dallas, Washington D.C., and many of our cities infested with crime!

We do not want TWENTY-TWO of her family members coming here, stuffing them all in one home, and destroying entire blocks of our housing. It is expensive to live here, they trash our neighborhoods, and continue to overbreed in poverty to collect welfare benefits! They have no transportation, no babysitters, no money to pay for healthcare or school. We should not be forced to foot the bill for this.

USA wants to be "safe" too. Go home! We do not need hordes of disease infected foreign citizens breaking into our country because THEY destroyed their country and live in filth and squalor and refuse to take birth control or fight for their own country!

This is disgusting!

Go be "safe" on the beautiful beaches of Mexico and go squat in their resorts. They can house and feed you.

Put them to work there.

Americans want to be safe. Secured borders, no illegal immigration, no added crime, financial theft of taxpayers’ dollars, no threats to lives, jobs, etc. will keep America safer.

We give so much money to other nations and yet their citizens continue to come. We reward countries for using and hating America and its citizens.