Is Tijuana prepared for the next caravan?

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The temporary shelter set up at Unidad Benito Juarez in Tijuana was initially packed full in the gym to include the baseball field where tents and makeshift tents were set up for people from the Central American migrant caravan. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Wendy Fry
January 22, 2019

With a new caravan on the way, Tijuana government officials have not given much thought to avoiding the chaos that arrived in November with 6,000 Central American migrants.

“Well, let’s hope they don’t come here,” said Leonardo Neri, a federal volunteer and the coordinator for a temporary migrant shelter on the eastern outskirts of Tijuana.

Neri said operations at El Barretal are winding down as most of the remaining migrants have found work and alternate living arrangements in Tijuana. He said no plans have been made about whether it will be reopened or used as a shelter when or if the next caravan arrives.

At other shelters across Tijuana, resources remain strained, volunteers are weary and conditions are crowded. Beleaguered aid workers are barely able to look up from one dire situation to the next. Meanwhile, remnants of a current caravan from Honduras crossed into Chiapas as recently as Saturday.

Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastélum issued a statement this week refusing to apologize for the initial shelter conditions when migrants arrived in November, saying his primary obligation is to the residents and City of Tijuana.

Tijuana city officials insist the caravan was a federal responsibility from the start.

“The previous caravan arrived in the city at a unique time when we were in a period of transition in our federal government. That will not be the case with this next caravan,” said Cesar Palencia, the city’s Director of Migrant Assistance.

It took the last caravan three weeks to get to Mexico City, but from there they began arriving in Tijuana seemingly overnight by bus. Tijuana city officials scrambled to set up an emergency shelter in an open-air sports arena that quickly became overcrowded and then flooded.

“We warned from the beginning that we did not have the resources to deal with this amount of people,” said Palencia. “But, still we gave them shelter and food and provided medicine from the very beginning of their arrival in Tijuana.”

When Mexico’s new president Andrés Manuel López Obrador was sworn into office, the federal government took over operations, and conditions and resources improved at a new, bigger shelter across town.

Palencia said if the federal government is not able to keep the caravan in Chiapas with work, as promised, it will be their responsibility to once again make decisions about how to coordinate resources and safeguard the migrants.

“I believe the position of the government of Tijuana is that the obligation for the large caravan has to be with the federal government because we do not have the resources and we do not have the personnel to adequately provide for everyone,” said Palencia.

Food nearly ran out during a two-day stretch near the end of November and some children reported not getting to eat for days.

Nonprofit leaders credit Tijuana city officials with communicating how dire the situation was at Benito Juárez, the first city-run shelter.

“At least, we did not see them sugar-coating the conditions on the news,” said Leti Guzman, who was among a coalition of non-profit volunteers and the Comisión Estatal de Derechos Humanos who publicly asked the mayor to apologize.

“No, I’m not going to apologize,” Gastélum responded, according to El Sol de Tijuana. “Better, I’d say that the federal government, the Latin American governments and all those people who are against the people of Tijuana, apologize to us.”

Guzman said the response was expected. She said she did not anticipate operations will run more smoothly with the next caravan and was bracing for the possibility they may be worse with resources already strained and volunteers weary.

“Tijuana is doing bad itself with the cartels and the politics of Tijuana and we see a lot of opposition from the residents. It’s really hard in this scenario. I think it’s hard to address this in a way that satisfies all sides,” she said.

Migrants faced violence with Tijuana residents first throwing rocks at them while they slept in the downtown city shelter and then canisters of tear gas when they later moved to the federally run shelter outside of town. Two young Honduran teenagers were brutally killed.

To their credit, leaders said Mexico’s National Employment Service did well matching local companies in Tijuana with Central American migrants looking for work. They helped 2,900 migrants process their applications for humanitarian visas and operated a six-day a week federal job fair to help many find employment in Tijuana.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...122-story.html

USA does not have the money or resources either. We do not have the housing and we have a 900,000 backlog and 25 million illegals residing in our country.

Send them all back.

DAPA was declared illegal...how many have been deported? Our LAWS are ignored and not upheld.

They keep approving more laws and bills which they do not uphold. Look at sanctuary cities...those Governor's need to be prosecuted.

Now Trump is hinting at a free pass for 11 million people who do not belong here and have no right to be here. Is DAPA included in that group too? Not only was DAPA supposed to be removed from our country, now they get another chance at a free pass for breaking our laws. This is a disgusting joke.

Now over 500,000 under TPS they want to allow to stay forever! Enough is enough.

What about the millions of refugees brought here against our will and we are still footing that bill every day for their welfare, housing, school, food stamps and medical care! We want them sent back home. It is not free money...it is our hard earned dollars we go to work and earn every day to support our own families who have every right to be here.

We are being lied to, we are being crushed by this.

The Mexican people do not want them, USA does not want them to come here. No country can withstand the weight and costs of this massive illegal migration of millions of people. No one...not even the USA. We are 22 trillion in debt and climbing. It will never get paid off if this continues.

Send them back and solve their gang problems and poverty in their countries.

This is not fair to those waiting in line to come here legally. It is not fair to the hard working American people who are forced to pay the $133 billion a year for this out of our wallets. They keep coming and those costs will rise to $200 billion a year in addition to the over $50 billion they send back and do not spend in our economy.

We have all had it with this nonsense!

Congress, do your job and stop them from entering our country.

Close the loop holes, cut off the welfare, tax refunds and freebies and end birthright citizenship!