The migrants were forced to sleep on the floor, waiting to be picked up

Thousands of migrants are piling up in processing centers near the US-Mexico border, to the point where some are forced to sleep on the floor for lack of space.

“It was crowded! We were supposed to sleep on small mattresses, but because there were so many people, I had to sleep on the floor the first night,” says Venezuelan Miguel, 52, the day after he was released from such a center in El Paso.

In this Texas border city, 6,200 people were housed in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities yesterday, according to the city’s dashboard.

This is where the authorities register asylum seekers, and then decide whether to accept them temporarily or to return them from the country.

The abnormally high traffic at the centers is due to a wave of migrants who crossed the border this week, before a measure taken by the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic to be able to quickly deport them was lifted.

A few hours after Title 42 lifted, the whole situation was under control, and he got to see it Newspaper.

However, recently released migrants met near a bus stop and witnessed the ordeal they experienced in these immigration centers.

cramped

“They were asked to turn on the air conditioning, but there were so many people in the same room that it wasn’t cold,” remembers Yoniker, a refrigeration technician who preferred not to give his full name because it didn’t hurt your chances.

The tall 26-year-old Venezuelan said he slept on a narrow mattress a few centimeters thick with one companion’s feet on his head and another on the floor directly at his feet.

“He said our cell could hold 160 people, but I think we were at least 500,” added his friend Davelso after six days in CBP charge.

The two comrades now wanted to leave El Paso as quickly as possible, with only a small plastic bag containing their official documents.

25,000 immigrants

José María Ramos Garcia, a professor at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, in Tijuana, recalls that the overcrowding in El Paso centers is partly due to the fact that this sector has become the busiest on the border.

“These conditions remain [d’hébergement] Somewhat questionable,” says the US-Mexico relations specialist.

Just under 25,000 immigrants were in CBP’s care yesterday, a number that jumped to 28,000 earlier this week, according to data obtained by CBP. Los Angeles Times.

Depending on the number of immigrants passing through in the coming days, the situation could deteriorate, especially with the decision of a federal judge in Florida last Thursday night.

The judge blocked a ruling by the Biden administration that would allow immigrants to be released before they even get a court date to decide their fate.

With Agence France-Presse