What has happened to the flow of migrants surging north from violent Central American countries to seek asylum in the United States?
First, a wall has been built and paid for by Mexico as President Donald Trump has promised. As evidence, let’s look at the area west of El Paso and Juárez.
We were astonished back at Easter to see that the wall actually ended in that area. On a later trip, a dozen young migrants came running by my car. A Customs and Border Patrol officer told me that day that they had placed sensors there to quickly spot those entering illegally. But a family on the Mexican side said that migrants showed up every night, ignored the gap with its sensors and quickly surged over the wall with ladders. In short, nothing was working.
When I visited on Oct. 18, however, there were at least 40 Mexican soldiers deployed in this area. The two I talked to were from Veracruz. They had no idea how long they would be stationed in Juárez but were convinced that they were stopping anyone from crossing. Maybe, therefore, Mexico has, in effect, built and paid for a wall as Trump claimed it would — just with soldiers rather than steel and concrete.
There is a cost, however. Thirteen police officers were killed in an ambush in Michoacán on Oct. 14 and a few days later, cartel gunmen overwhelmed 35 soldiers and police in Culiacán and forced them to release Ovidio Guzmán López, El Chapo’s son. Would these atrocities have been possible if Mexican soldiers hadn’t been diverted to the border?
As for the migrants themselves, where have they gone? The extraordinary shelter put together by the city of Deming, New Mexico has been empty for weeks. In July, Aaron Sera, the city manager said that their goal was to be “the model shelter in the Southwest border.” Now because of President Trump’s cruel remain-in-Mexico policy, it is empty.
Historically, migrants were allowed to stay in the U.S. with family members or sponsors until their actual judicial hearing for asylum. Many would be brought to shelters like Deming’s by Customs and Border Patrol. Local volunteers would do medical screening and then arrange transportation for the migrants to go stay with family members or sponsors and await their judicial hearings.
The-remain-in-Mexico policy now forces them to return to Mexico and wait there. Thousands of migrants are jammed into border towns like Juárez where there are few resources.
Recently, I saw some two hundred migrants from the very dangerous Mexican state of Michaocán living on the sidewalk of a narrow street that leads to the international bridge. How are they fed? What about bathrooms? It’s inhuman, especially for little children.
Look at the contrast. Earlier this year there were about 200 migrants in Deming, safe and treated with care. Now that facility is empty and instead, 200 migrants are living in squalor on the sidewalk in Juárez. Remember also that Juárez is still dangerous. In the first six months of 2019, there were twice as many homicides there as the combined total for Chicago and New York.
President Trump has waged war on migrants and he is winning. Who is going to report on what is happening to them in Juárez, a city that few reporters or politicians want to visit?
Unless we help alleviate the violence, corruption and poverty in those Central American countries, desperate people will continue to flee, the walls that separate us will continue to be breached, and the misery will continue. This is a shameful chapter in American history.
Morgan Smith is a former member of the Colorado House of Representatives and Commissioner of Agriculture who now lives in New Mexico and makes monthly trips to the border to document conditions there and assist several humanitarian programs. He can be reached at Morgan-smith@comcast.net.
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