REYNOSA, MEXICO — In a concrete plaza in this Mexican border town, Isabela Julaj huddled with her two young daughters, Yesica Rosita 7, and Maria Francela, 8 ½. Her despair sprang from the cold calculus of binational immigration policy.
If the girls had been 6 or younger, the 28-year-old mother would have been able to cross the border and into a life of U.S. reinvention, far away from the misery of Guatemala where a pandemic and a pair of hurricanes and violence have hammered the economy. Dozens of other Guatemalan families slumped with Isabela against the wall of a government building in the plaza near the international bridge from McAllen, trying to make sense of the chaos of the U.S. immigration system. Many had children over the age of unlucky number 7.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the border at a respite center in McAllen, Maria Noelia Ramos and her 20-month old daughter, Angie, were among the lucky. With a child under 6, Maria Noelia was given passage into the U.S. because the Mexicans had no space to shelter a migrant family with children of such a vulnerable age. The 25-year-old Maria Noelia fled Honduras and was waiting for a flight that would reunite her with her spouse. He lived in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, where he worked service jobs.
The tale of the two young mothers illustrates the helter-skelter nature of binational immigration policies. To these immigrants, it can seem that caprice more than solid rules determines who among them is allowed into the U.S. and who is expelled.
Isabela said she wanted to ask for asylum, but no one in the U.S. had asked her questions about why she traveled north with her girls, she said, as her almond eyes welled up with tears.
“I felt like we were so unimportant to them,” Isabela said of border agents. “They didn’t care if we lived.”
Across this region, south and north of the Rio Grande, desperate scenes like this play out daily.
The top U.S. immigration official has predicted border crossings will reach highs not seen in 20 years. In 2000, a record 1.6 million immigrants were apprehended.
But most immigrants, 8 out of 10, are being sent south under a pandemic-related public order known as Title 42 and left over from the administration of President Donald Trump. That’s a crucial distinction in border crossings. And the Mexican government, in the state of Tamaulipas which abuts much of South Texas, is so overwhelmed that it’s not allowing the return of migrant families with children under the age of 6 years old.
Families with younger children and unaccompanied teens and children are allowed passage into the U.S. And their numbers keep rising.
So there are bottlenecks of overcrowding in temporary shelters in Mexican border cities and in federal government facilities of the U.S. It’s intensifying political rhetoric focused on children, who mostly come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. On Tuesday, the children were referred to “as passports” by Mark A. Morgan, the former acting commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the Trump administration at an event with Republican members of Congress and county sheriffs at the U.S. banks of the Rio Grande in Mission.
Overarching issues
Child migration is not new to Sister Norma Pimentel, the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, who saw it in 2014, 2018, 2019 and now. She runs a respite center in McAllen, across from Reynosa, for arriving migrants to get a meal, a shower and quick shelter before they make their way north.
Told of the passport remark, the nun parsed her words surgically: “I don’t know if it’s a passport or a family with a young child that knows that they will not be deported if the child is 6 or under. ... We must look at these people as human beings who are victims of crime.”
The overarching issues triggering the migration North often get far less attention — from gang violence to crushing poverty made worse by the coronavirus pandemic to a pair of hurricanes that destroyed houses and businesses and schools in Central America last year.
While the fate of Maria Noelia starkly contrasted with that of Isabela, who waited in Reynosa dependent on the kindness of people bringing food to the plaza, some aspects of their journey had familiar threads.
Both women were taken to the same dismal holding area run by the U.S. government under the Anzalduas International Bridge in Mission. Photos taken from across the Rio Grande show immigrants crowded in a fenced-in area. Both women said they slept on dirt.
The Honduran mother said there were about 500 people there. She also said she was dropped off at the international bridge into downtown Reynosa at 1 a.m. Several other immigrants said they had been dropped off in the middle of the night, too. For three consecutive mornings, the bridge was littered with small U.S. Department of Homeland Security plastic bags where belongings are kept with tags carrying the migrant’s name.
Customs and Border Patrol officials aren’t allowing journalists into the Anzalduas International Bridge area, which they call a temporary processing “superstation.” Entry points to the station this week were blocked off by Border Patrol agents.
The outdoor shelter appears to be grimmer than one run by CBP in Donna that was supposed to house only 250 because of the pandemic. There are now about 4,100 persons there, according to pool coverage released Tuesday by two news organizations that were finally allowed in to show the world images of the cramped conditions.
‘I came to have a future’
In downtown McAllen, Maria Noelia sat on an iron bench near shops that hawked puffy quinceañera dresses in pink and purple and restaurants that pitched chicken cordon bleu and lobster tails. Her curly hair was damp from a shower and she beamed when she spoke of her plans in Hawaii.
McAllen, a city of 143,000, boasts of its safety. Reynosa, a city of 705,000, is notorious for its organized crime. It sits in a state that the U.S. State Department gives its highest do-not-travel-warning due to crime, gun battles, extortion and kidnappings.
Honduras, a country of about 10 million, is “so filled with violence,” said Maria Noelia. “There’s no education for children. It’s in bad shape.”
Then the hurricanes Eta and Iota hit late last year. Her home caved in because of the torrential rains. “There are so many in need there. We know [the U.S.] is a special place with so much attention given to children.”
Now, Maria Noelia said she knew she was lucky to have a roof over her head after the hurricanes. She and her child Angie had survived.
“I came to have a future,” she said.
Little Angie slept in her arms, carefully dressed in a pink and black T-shirt and striped pants and matching pink and black sneakers. In her slumber, Angie coughed and squirmed. Her mother tightened her embrace.
In Reynosa, Isabela and her two girls faced an uncertain future. She said with little money left, she will probably have to return to Guatemala.
“There’s nothing left for me to do.” she said.
Near their mom, little Yesica braided the thick hair of her older sister, who stared ahead in silence.
