April 29, 2024

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Developments

Over 1,000 migrants arrived in Ciudad Juárez atop train cars, despite Mexico’s months-long operations to block northbound migration. Many headed to the Rio Grande to seek to turn themselves in to Border Patrol to seek asylum, but Texas state authorities have blocked most of them on the riverbank.

It is one of the largest mass arrivals of migrants at the border during a 2024 calendar year marked by a Mexican government crackdown that has made it more difficult for migrants to get across Mexico’s territory. “Some U.S. officials are attributing the surge to a concerted effort by transnational criminal organizations” in Mexico to move migrants northward, according to Border Report.

In response, Texas’s state National Guard has stocked up on less-lethal “pepperball” ammunition, while state police have stepped up “safety inspections” of cargo trucks crossing into El Paso. The state checkpoints begin shortly after trucks cross official ports of entry. This double inspection—federal, then state—is causing hours-long delays at border crossings into El Paso.

Migrants in Ciudad Juárez told EFE that they crossed to the U.S. side of the Rio Grande to ask U.S. authorities for asylum, but Texas state National Guard personnel aggressively pushed them back into Mexico.

The mostly Venezuelan migrants added that they fear Mexican organized crime more than Mexican migration authorities, but their fear of authorities mistreating them—or even handing them over to criminals—prevents them from asking for help.

Mexican authorities stopped a Ciudad Juárez-bound tractor trailer with 131 migrants inside. 108 were from Guatemala, 22 from Ecuador, and 1 was from El Salvador. Fourteen were unaccompanied children.

Someone on the Mexico side of the U.S.-Mexico border fired a weapon at an agent near San Elizario, in eastern El Paso county, on April 25. CBP has reported no injuries or other information about the incident.

USA Today covered Mexican forces’ strategy, intensified so far in 2024, of busing migrants away from the U.S. border zone and into the country’s interior, often Mexico’s far south. This, analysts told reporter Lauren Villagrán, has done more than Texas’s state crackdown to reduce recent migration into Texas. The Mexican government is relying less on international deportation or long-term detention.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that he plans to meet with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo at the end of May, probably near the two countries’ border. Migration will be among the topics of discussion between the outgoing Mexican president and the recently inaugurated Guatemalan leader.

Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office raided the Guatemala City offices of Save the Children, apparently looking for evidence of abuse of migrant children. Prosecutors “claimed Save the Children and a number of other non-governmental groups could ‘be participating in child trafficking operations,’” the Associated Press reported.

Save the Children stated that its staff have done nothing wrong, and noted that the prosecutor’s office has made no specific allegations.

Political motivations, with U.S. links, are a likely factor. The secretary general of the Attorney General’s Office issued a video, distributed by Fox News, calling on Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) to aid his investigation. Paxton recently sought legal action against Annunciation House, an El Paso migrant shelter, but was rebuffed by a state judge.

In Guatemala, the attorney general is a separate branch of government, not part of the executive branch headed by President Arévalo. The current attorney-general, Consuelo Porras, has aggressively sought to prosecute anti-corruption judicial operators and journalists, is a frequent hindrance to Arévalo, and faces strict U.S. sanctions for links to corruption and anti-democratic behavior.

San Diego’s county supervisor said that Border Patrol agents in the border’s westernmost sector—rather suddenly the busiest part of the border—apprehended 2,000 people on April 23 alone. CBP has released more than 30,000 migrants onto the city’s streets since February, when a county-run reception center shut down for lack of funding.

In Colombia, a draft resolution appeared to indicate that the government was going to begin requiring Venezuelan citizens in the country to possess a passport. If that were to occur and Venezuelans faced such a barrier to documented status in Colombia, a U.S.-bound exodus through the Darién Gap would be likely. After an outcry, the Colombian government walked this back; President Gustavo Petro denied that a passport requirement was in the offing.

Legislation sponsored by Rep. Lou Correa (D-California) urges CBP to explore making greater use of artificial intelligence at the border.

Analyses and Feature Stories

An update from UNHCR broke down, by country, the 1.157 million refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced people currently in Mexico and Central America. This is about double the figure from 2020.

An article from the Migration Policy Institute recalled that the pandemic-era Title 42 expulsions policy did not reduce migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

A report from the Center for Migration Studies calls for deep, long-term reforms to the U.S. immigration court system’s staffing and infrastructure, along with other reforms to the immigration system, to reduce the system’s backlog of more than 2.5 million cases. Because of that backlog, most asylum seekers released into the U.S. interior from the border can expect to remain in the immigration court system for years. A “BacklogPredictor” tool helps estimate future backlogs and resource needs based on different assumptions.

The New York Times reported on how portraying migration at the border as an “invasion,” which only recently was considered an extreme, marginal position, is now a staple of mainstream Republican politicians’ rhetoric.

The mistrial of George Kelly, an Arizona rancher who shot and killed a migrant on his property, is emblematic of the polarized, politicized, and complicated situation along the border today, explained an essay by Rachel Monroe at the New Yorker.

An Axios poll found half of U.S. respondents favoring mass deportations of undocumented migrants. On the other hand, 58 percent said they support expanding legal immigration pathways, and 46 percent favored protecting asylum seekers with “legitimate” cases.

Texas state “border czar” Mike Banks, a former career Border Patrol agent, told USA Today, “Over the next five years … we’re going to continue building tactical infrastructure. We’re going to continue building border wall. Right now, our current pace is about one mile a week. We’re going to put up things like the border buoy barriers.”

On the Right

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