U.S. Halts Mexican Migrant Repatriations Via Violent Border City
March 13, 2010
By Patricia Giovine

EL PASO, Texas – U.S. immigration authorities have suspended voluntary repatriations of Mexicans through El Paso to protect undocumented aliens from the notorious violence of the neighboring Mexican city of Juarez.

The Border Patrol spokesman in El Paso, Douglas Mosier, told Efe that for an indefinite period of time, undocumented Mexicans detained in southern Texas will be sent for their voluntary return to Presidio, from where they will be transported to Ojinaga, Mexico.

Undocumented immigrants nabbed entering southern Texas illegally until Wednesday were repatriated via the international border crossings from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez.

For their part, immigrants detained in New Mexico, which is also within the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector, will be repatriated through Columbus, New Mexico.

Mosier said that excluded from this project of voluntary repatriations through Presidio, Texas, will be unaccompanied women and children.

“These exceptions are for safety reasons, since we’re trying to keep from separating families and protect them from the risks of traveling from the town of Presidio,â€