State of Emergency for the City of New York City and Implications for the Migrant Invasion in the Post-Biden Era
Mayor Eric Adams has declared a state of emergency to help respond to the city’s migrant crisis, which he told reporters Friday will cost the city $1 billion this fiscal year.
Adams said more people are arriving in New York City than can be accommodated immediately. “Once the asylum seekers from today’s buses are provided shelter, we would surpass the highest number of people in recorded history in our city’s shelter system.”
In August and October, El Paso sent 8,754 migrants to New York and 2,091 to Chicago in 207 charter buses. The migrants being considered for the buses had been processed by the Border Patrol.
“Once we finalize how we’re going to continue to live up to our legal and moral obligation, we’re going to announce it. Until then, we’re just letting people know what we’re thinking of and how we’re going to find creative ways to solve this man-made humanitarian crisis,” Adams said at an unrelated event.
Some who favor increasing immigration restrictions say that the policies of the Biden administration made it easier for people to cross the border illegally. Some Republican candidates have pushed the narrative of a migrant invasion as midterm elections approach, pledging they’ll do more to crack down on illegal immigration.
The rivalry between Abbott and Adams has arisen because of the governor’s accusations that the city has been a sanctuary for migrants. The mayor wants more resources, including housing assistance. The White House said it is in touch with Adams and committed to FEMA funding and other support.
The couple who stayed at the shelter are not legally married to the next-door neighbor: Many Venezuelan migrants will not qualify for the legal pathway set-up to help t
But they were turned away, because they’re not legally married. The couple needed some paperwork to stay at the shelter. They couldn’t get the paperwork they needed until Monday because it was Sunday.
Like many of the Venezuelan migrants crossing the southern border right now, Villegas and Pineda didn’t have any money, or any family or friends anywhere in the U.S. they could call for help.
But the new arrangement will accept a relatively small number of Venezuelan migrants, compared with the more than 150,000 who’ve crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in the past year.
“They’re starting over in very precarious circumstances,” said Andrew Selee, the president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., “because they don’t have the social networks in the United States that other migrants generally do.”
They don’t have work permits. They don’t know anything about the immigration system. They have been able to work a little bit: Villegas has done some demolition, while Pineda is occasionally cleaning houses.
This mass migration of people from Venezuela is new in the U.S., but it has been happening for years in other parts of the world. U.S. officials say nearly 8 million people have left Venezuela — more than a quarter of the population — to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile, as the country’s economy has collapsed under its authoritarian government and the impact of U.S. sanctions.
There is no U.S. embassy in Venezuela. The couple left their home country and sold their possessions in the process. Like many of their counterparts from Venezuela, they trekked across the dangerous Darién Gap jungle in Panama.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/15/1129295198/many-venezuelan-migrants-will-not-qualify-for-the-legal-pathway-set-up-to-help-t
El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, and the New York/Mexico border crossing with a young couple and two young children
Alejandro Mayorkas said at a press conference with his Mexican counterpart that they must build safe, lawful and humane pathways so they don’t need to use the more desperate and dangerous measures.
Migrants will also have to pass strict requirements in order to qualify. They must apply from abroad; any migrants who cross the U.S. border illegally are disqualified. They need a sponsor who can support them in the US.
Still, the couple has had some good moments in New York. Earlier this month, they reunited with their children, ages 20 and 21, who had been living in Peru for the last few years. They also crossed the Rio Grande and took a bus to rejoin their parents in New York. Now they’re all together in the same hotel that’s serving as a homeless shelter, where they feel safer. NPR met them nearby at a park to talk.
Villegas and Pineda dream about someday having jobs like the ones they left behind in Valencia, Venezuela, about two hours west of Caracas. Villegas was a soccer coach. The small soccer academy he owned was closed down because parents were not able to pay the monthly fees. Pineda cooked in a restaurant and owned a convenience store at a bus station.
Like the border’s way of life, the continuous arrival of migrants is complex and palpable in El Paso as much as in Ciudad Juárez, its larger sister city in Mexico. On the north concrete banks of the Rio Grande, hundreds of people — many of them Nicaraguans — are lining up for hours, waiting to seek asylum in the US. On the river’s south banks, where a camp of migrants living in tents was dismantled last month by Mexican officials, Venezuelans are longing for the day they can do the same without being expelled to Mexico. Numerous nonprofit and faith groups as well as governments on both sides of the border are scrambling because their shelters are quickly reaching capacity.
Analyzing a Mexican Border Patrol Using Anonymous Sources: The Case of Ciudad Juarez, El Paso, and the Family of a Child
Before using anonymous sources, we must consider what we are doing. The sources may or may not know the information. What motivates them to tell us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and the editor know who the source is.
The scenes provided a potential window into the situation that border authorities have been bracing for as early as next week, when a pandemic health policy known as Title 42 is set to expire. The policy, put in place by the Trump administration and continued under President Biden under a court order, has allowed U.S. authorities to rapidly expel migrants, even those seeking asylum, in order to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
The US is limited in its ability to expel Nicaraguans due to diplomatic reasons. Mexico will not accept them, and the Biden administration cannot send repatriation flights. As a result, most of the Nicaraguans apprehended are released on a short-term parole with a tracking device or sent briefly to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, where they are typically released after a few days.
Eventually, they will face removal proceedings in immigration court. The process of getting a warrant and a date to appear in immigration court can take more than two hours, meaning there will be a lot of backups.
The group arriving on Sunday included migrants who had been traveling from several Central and South American countries, as well as Haiti, and who had been granted temporary legal status in Mexico that allowed them to travel freely in that country for 180 days, said Santiago González Reyes, the head of the human rights offices in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso.
The group did not stay long in Juárez. The migrants decided to cross the border in a big way, and hundreds more joined them. “They left on foot and crossed the river,” Mr. González said.
El Paso and Ciudad Juárez — Dina Diaz walked slowly behind her husband on the streets of El Paso, Texas, trying to hide her defeat and frustration from their children. They were escorted to the emergency shelter by a social worker, but were denied entry due to the lack of sunlight.
The homeless crisis of El Paso, Nicaragua: the impact of the border crossings and drug and gang violence on migrant families in the United States
Moments before, the Nicaraguan mother of three children who is seven months pregnant, couldn’t stop her eyes from watering when the social worker burst into tears, apologizing for coming empty-handed.
Diaz and her family are among the thousands of migrants who arrived in El Paso in the past week. They are part of a surge of border crossings overwhelming resources in this community — a crisis that is likely to worsen with the court-ordered end of Title 42 next week.
More than 2,500 people have arrived in El Paso each day in the past week, city officials said, warning that the number is expected to double after the federal policy is lifted.
“It’s something that we’re going to have to work with the UN and other countries to work through. It’s a situation that again, is bigger than El Paso, and now it’s become bigger than the United States,” he told reporters earlier this week.
The reality of a looming December 21 deadline for the government to end its policy is weighing heavily on the city, where officials and community organizations already say they’re overwhelmed.
“We have a responsibility to meet at this moment,” said Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, a local nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants.
It is necessary for all of us to encourage our elected officials to act more in this situation. We don’t have that luxury and it isn’t something we can just turn away from. This is a real phenomenon that people anywhere in the US need to know about,” she added.
CNN spoke with people on both sides of the US-Mexico border about the harsh realities that migrant families have experienced since fleeing poverty as well as drug and gang violence in their home countries, and the role that some locals play in the humanitarian crisis.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/12/us/el-paso-crossings-migrant-stories-reaj-cnnphotos/
An El Paso resident’s perspective on the experience of traveling to Mexico and back again: a Guatemalan refugee’s friend and his father Daniel Banda, a Mexican immigrant
For the past week, Misael has waited outside the Greyhound station in hopes that he will be able to catch a final bus that will take him to his brother in Central Texas.
The 35-year-old spent more than two months traveling from Peru to El Paso, but he can’t afford his bus ticket yet. He arrived at the US-Mexico border with no more than the clothes he was wearing.
“Traveling to Mexico was horrible, it’s an experience that I won’t be able to forget — something that marked me for life,” Aguilera said about being robbed, hearing about kidnappings and seeing people losing their lives.
Aguilera, who used to work as a clinical nurse specialist in his native Cuba, keeps himself busy by keeping the makeshift camp outside the downtown bus station somewhat organized and clean. As people leave on buses, he and others collect the larger blankets that are left behind, and save them for those who may arrive at any given time.
We are trying to keep the house clean. Aguilera said to make sure trash is picked up, keep the space clean, and create an environment where we can feel safe.
Others near the Greyhound station are Diaz, her family and her sister’s family. Some people, including adults and their toddlers, have been in El Paso for a week not knowing if they would get a bus ticket.
Afraid of getting separated, they spent most nights on the streets after shelters wouldn’t accept all of them or denied them entry for not having arranged travel out of El Paso. When Carlos Pavn Flores can only hold their daughter Esther in his arms, there are a lot of times. If nothing, he wants to keep her safe and warm.
Daniel Banda tends to a once-quiet convenience store and gas station near the edge of downtown El Paso. A building across the street from another bus station and two blocks from the Greyhound station has become the first stop for many migrants after being released from Border Patrol custody.
And the 20-year-old, who used to spend his days solely cleaning and restocking shelves, might be the first El Paso resident who is not a government official that many migrants encounter.
Some people are wondering if the store would exchange pesos for dollars, if they could buy clothes in the store, and if they had access to a clean restroom. He understands the precarious situation that migrants are in, even if the traffic is busy at times.
“I come from a modest background and my family has taught me to help in any way I can,” Banda said. They are very respectful. They are better than some locals.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/12/us/el-paso-crossings-migrant-stories-reaj-cnnphotos/
The Crossroads Between El Paso and Ciudad Jures: A Project for the Future of a Community of Migrants
A few feet away from the store is a group of people camping on the sidewalk. In the past two months, the number of people in the area has increased considerably, he says. Some have been sleeping there for a week, while others only arrived a day ago.
He says his mother has begun collecting blankets and talking to her friends and employers about how they can also help because he talks with his family about what he sees at the store.
When a white bus dropped 25 men who had just been released from immigration custody at the doorstep of a shelter near downtown El Paso without prior notice, staff members — from social workers, receptionists and maintenance workers — rushed to pick up intake forms and pens to greet them.
The facility is one of five homeless shelters that have been either at capacity or over capacity with the arrival of migrants, said John Martin, deputy director of the Opportunity Center for the Homeless, which runs the shelters.
Martin and his staff are among the dozens of people working for nonprofits, religious groups, immigrant advocates, and other groups that have stepped up to help migrants and are close to reaching their breaking point.
Martin said staff members help migrants arrange travel since they don’t want to stay in El Paso. While the shelter doesn’t cover the cost, it’s a process that involves many calls to relatives across the country, bus companies and airlines, and navigating language barriers.
We could get 30 on the way and I have 50 that come in right behind them. We’re never going to be able to catch up at this rate,” Martin said.
Martin worries that the shelter’s very own mission would be in danger if they had to make an unpopular decision about the shelter’s future.
The Opportunity Center is about to reach a point where there is not enough space to handle them, and I think it might be within the next day or two. And we’re going to have to say no.”
Shelters have quickly reached capacity across the border in Ciudad Jures, as more and more facilities open up. The shelters serve as a point of convergence between people who have been temporarily living in this border city for months after seeking asylum in the US and being expelled into Mexico, and those who reached the border in the past weeks and are waiting for the end of Title 42 expulsions.
Ingrid Matamoros and her family have lived at Tierra de Oro church shelters in Juárez for nearly six months. She had found success in selling plus-size clothing but gang violence and extortion scared her and her husband away from their home.
Matamoros says she has gone through phases of desperation and shame of being in so much need, and hopes that they will soon be processed and vetted to enter the US with the support of a sponsor.
“You ask yourself why other people are crossing and you are not, why others have that opportunity and why there are people who waste their chances when there’s people like us who are at risk,” Matamoros says.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/12/us/el-paso-crossings-migrant-stories-reaj-cnnphotos/
El Paso crossings migrant histories: Joseph and Mary Matamoros’s journey to Bethlehem ends on the other side of the Rio Grande banks
The families who traveled from other parts of Mexico spent their morning at the shelter arranging furniture, decorating their house and cooking food for a Mexican Christmas tradition which includes re-enactments of Joseph and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem. Matamoros says it’s something that will make her two sons, 9 and 4 years old, laugh and forget about their demoralizing journey.
I would like this to end soon. I need a stable home for my children so that they can stay out of trouble and have a normal life. I don’t want them to suffer anymore.
After reaching the south side of the Rio Grande banks, he put down a metal tray with doughnuts and took his socks off so that he could pick them up again. In a matter of seconds, he dipped his feet in the freezing water and stepped on rocks that lead him to US land without dropping the tray.
He has been carrying boxes of pizzas, water bottles, and other items for a long time, but he can’t go further into the US because of his nationality.
The man from Venezuela has been selling food and water near the border in El Paso. Venezuelans had been previously exempt from Title 42, but the Biden administration started applying it to them in October.
It’s ours to simply wait and watch what happens. In the meantime, we work on this side of the border to survive,” said Sanchez Mendez, who has been in Juárez for about a week waiting for the end of Title 42.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/12/us/el-paso-crossings-migrant-stories-reaj-cnnphotos/
La guerra de Juan Miguel Perez y el agua y la fase de Santiago: Algunas esas habitacionales
He spends most of his day walking down the line of people, his voice echoes as he yells “el agua, el agua se acaba” (the water, the water is running out) trying to sell the water bottles he and his friends bought together. It’s their way of making some money or as some Venezuelans say “buscar la moneda” to eat and one day continue their journey up North.