Texas-Mexico border faces steep challenges as migrant numbers rise in Juárez-El Paso

CIUDAD JUÁREZ — In this Mexican border city next to El Paso, migration is rising as the end of a pandemic-related policy nears, and false social media pitches that offer hope of refuge in the United States grow.

Title 42, expected to end May 11, allowed the U.S. government to quickly expel migrants. Critics said Title 42 also stopped many asylum-seekers from petitioning for refuge, a legal right under U.S. and international law.

The challenges are immense as the number of migrants seeking safe refuge has hit a record high around the world due to wars, conflict and climate change, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

Migrants cluster near the international bridge to downtown El Paso in camps of tattered tents and in nearby abandoned buildings. Children cry as parents try to soothe them. Adults cajole businesses to let them use their indoor toilets. The air reeks of urine.

The Juárez-El Paso corridor has become the most traveled region for migrants, according to statistics from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Already this year, U.S. asylum processing has changed with the launch of an app with limited daily appointments of less than 800 a day for those requesting an exception to Title 42 enforcement.

In February, there were more than 20,000 individuals who received Title 42 exceptions and began the asylum process.

Demand saturates the daily slots within five to 10 minutes, for an app whose purpose is to bring efficiency to processing, according to the CBP.

“The next few weeks will be chaotic,” said Enrique Valenzuela, director of a Mexican state population agency that provides migrant support services. “There is pent-up frustration and nothing good comes out of that.”

Frustration in Juárez

In Ciudad Juárez, migrants have set up a tent camp across the street from the Mexican detention center where 40 migrants died in a fire on March 27.

“We are at capacity,” said Javier Calvillo, director of the Casa del Migrante, the biggest shelter in the city. “The numbers will only rise in the days to come.”

Across the border, El Paso’s fire department is running drills along the Rio Grande to prepare to rescue migrants from drowning, as concerns grow about a rise in desperate attempts to cross.

Rumors run wild. “They [the migrants] are waiting for any shred of hope, even when it comes in the form of a lie, and there is so much misinformation,” said Valenzuela.

In North Texas, as the lifting of Title 42 nears, leaders in the faith group known as Dallas Responds said they are preparing to give a brief resting place, food and clothing to migrants who come directly from El Paso.

Dallas Responds has given shelter for years to migrants, usually at the sprawling Oak Lawn United Methodist Church. More recently, those migrants have come directly by buses from federal immigration detention centers. “We will make sure to serve them as we have been,” said the Rev. Rachel Baughman, pastor of the Oak Lawn UMC.

Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins, who has championed migrant support, said it was still early to discuss how support would materialize.

“It’s premature to say what Dallas County and its nonprofits might be called on to do,” he said via email. “However, we have a track record of working to help with humanitarian relief and a good relationship with our counterparts in El Paso County and all along the border.”

Rumors in Mexico

Outside Valenzuela’s Juárez office, near the Paso del Norte International Bridge, hundreds of migrants gathered, looking at their cellphones, confused about a story from a U.S. digital site. Among the migrants was Jesus Romero from Venezuela, who later turned himself in to Border Patrol agents.

He pointed to a message on WhatsApp quoting a story from the Breitbart News site that alleged the Biden administration was ordering U.S. immigration officials to lift Title 42 restrictions for Venezuelans. Behind him, dozens of people absorbed the same false information.

They said the information from Breitbart, a right wing publication, was spreading on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and WhatsApp.

“We are not from here and don’t know if that is a credible source or not,” Romero said. Moments later, he and a small group of about eight people walked across the muddy, shallow Rio Grande and turned themselves in. Their fate was unknown.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection didn’t respond to inquiries about the Title 42 story in Breitbart.

At Annunciation House

Across the Rio Grande in El Paso, Ruben García of the nonprofit Annunciation House worried yet again about rising migration. He’s an expert at sheltering migrants in El Paso and then sending them to faith-based groups in Dallas, Houston and other cities.

García said there is a visible increase in migrant arrivals to El Paso, but it isn’t as dramatic as it was in December when migrants slept on downtown sidewalks because indoor shelters were full.

On Tuesday, García prepared for the arrival of 350 migrants — twice the usual number. A few days ago, 400 migrants arrived seeking his help.

“May 11 is coming, and I honestly don’t know what the Biden administration has planned,” said García. “If there is a significant number of people that enter the country… we need to also talk about spreading people in different communities.”

A senior Biden administration official told The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday about a new plan with Colombia and Panama that seeks to limit migration through the Darién Gap. Migration has increased again in that treacherous area, despite the January rollout of a humanitarian parole program for Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, the official said.

“We are prepared to increase support as necessary,” said the official, adding that training and logistic support are already given to Colombia and Panama. “We really view the Darién as a symbol of a much broader challenge about irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere.”

Rumors persist, especially in the Darién Gap, where assault and deaths occur often, the official said. “Rampant disinformation is part of this monetizing irregular migration,” the official said. “It gives the impression that going to the Darién Gap is like going to a national park.”

Criticism of asylum app

In Brownsville, Priscilla Orta, a supervising attorney with Project Corazon of the nonprofit Lawyers for Good Government, said there’s increasing migration to the Mexican border cities of Matamoros and Reynosa, not just Juárez.

The appointment app for the U.S. asylum process, known as CBP One, poses challenges, because, among other issues, migrants can’t always get adequate WiFi service, many migrants and immigrant advocates said.

A few days ago, they began receiving messages they weren’t close enough to the port of entry to get an appointment, triggering migration from the interior of Mexico to the border, Orta said.

“So people began to move en masse,” she said. “When you do not have clear information, it creates rumors and anxiety.”

In El Paso, the nonprofit Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center tweeted out Monday that many migrants in Juárez couldn’t get asylum appointments through CBP One, even though they were near the international bridge.

The tweet included a screenshot of the “No se puede programar” CBP message: “Cannot schedule. You must be near a port of entry in order to schedule an interview.”

Title 42 use has been declining overall, with a slight increase in the past few months. This fiscal year, through February, the pandemic policy was used about 37% of the time, compared with more than 80% in 2020.

Migrant camp

In Juárez, Areli Julio, 29, said migrants set up a camp near the federal detention center as a way to remember the migrants who died in last month’s fire. “We need to be together. Safety in numbers,” Julio said.

David Peña, 33, a Venezuelan, said his hopes were fading of making it to Miami. Peña and Julio said they wake up every morning to log on to the CBP One app.

“Between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m., that’s the time period when you might find a good connection, but I have not been able to register, because the app shuts down unexpectedly,’’ Peña said. “That’s why sometimes we are tricked into believing that something is happening, that they are letting us in and we leave en masse for the international bridge.”

One recent morning, Peña, along with about 500 migrants, gathered at the Paso del Norte International Bridge.

“We have nothing else to do, but to walk looking for a ray of hope,” he said, adding city officials in Juárez have made it difficult to find small jobs to make ends meet.

A woman who identified herself as Maria Zambrano, 40, listened to her fellow migrants, but did not want to speak in front of them.

She asked a reporter to join her in a quiet area. The Ecuadorian woman, who traveled with her husband, said she wanted to deliver a video message to other migrants. She put on a black ski mask and detailed her trauma.

“The hardest part of the journey was traveling through Mexico,” she said. “Once we crossed [into the southernmost Mexican border state of Chiapas], we were attacked. I was raped by two men. They beat me up.”

Despite the rape, Zambrano said she is more determined to cross into the U.S. She handed the reporter documents confirming a March 27 visit to a doctor in Mexico City, where she detailed the rape. That evening she and her husband stayed at a shelter in the Mexican capital.

In the morning, they awoke to the news of a fire that killed 40 migrants in Juárez. The couple continued their journey north atop a train. They traveled for nearly four days, at times freezing, she said.

Her husband talks of going back to Ecuador. She reminds him that their home region is engulfed by drug violence. “The only way is north,” she said. “That’s the only way to honor our sacrifice, by going forward.”

As she sobbed, her husband rushed to hug her. She pushed him away.

Alfredo Corchado reported from Ciudad Juárez, and Dianne Solis reported from Dallas. Freelance journalist Luis Torres contributed to this report.