LAREDO, TEXAS/NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO —
The U.S. Border Patrol reports it has intercepted more than 800,000 migrants and asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border so far in the 2019 fiscal year.
In recent months, the Trump administration has returned tens of thousands of mostly Central American migrants to Mexico to await U.S. immigration hearings under the .
This past Wednesday, the to all recent non-Mexican claimants who hadn’t already been denied asylum in a third country before reaching the U.S. border. Even before the Supreme Court decision, U.S. officials reported nine of 10 asylum claims were being rejected.
Despite such statistics, and amid rapidly shifting U.S. policies, migrants and asylum-seekers from the Americas, Africa and beyond await a determination of their fates while biding their time on both sides of America’s southern border.
VOA reporters and spoke with a broad sampling of migrants and asylum-seekers in early August. Many departed their home countries months before U.S. policy changes went into effect, under assumptions that no long apply. All are awaiting immigration court hearings. These are their stories.
Venezuela
: Returned to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, under MPP
Melissa fled Venezuela in late July seeking asylum in the United States. As a critic of Venezuela’s disputed President Nicolás Maduro, she feared retribution from the government. Along her route, she says she was kidnapped and extorted by smugglers in Reynosa, Mexico, who forced her to cross into the U.S. between ports of entry, where she was detained. Melissa was returned to the International Bridge spanning the Rio Grande river to Nuevo Laredo, Puente 1, lacking laces in her shoes, a change of clothes, food or shelter. Her pleas to remain in the U.S. to await her Oct. 22 court hearing were denied. “I thought this would be, as they say, the American dream. But for me, it’s only been an American nightmare.”
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El Salvador
Released to temporary nonprofit migrant facility in Laredo, Texas
After spending three days at a crowded U.S. detention facility in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Victor and son Daniel, 2, were transferred to a migrant shelter in Laredo. They were the only ones in his detention group who were not returned to Mexico under MPP, he said. He’ll await his court date in the U.S. Victor describes their brief time in detention as a test of physical and mental endurance. At night, the air conditioning made the facility dangerously cold, he says, and Daniel caught the flu. “My baby was shaking from the cold, so I wrapped him tighter.” Victor said Daniel received prompt medical attention. Since their release, Victor’s goal is to provide “security” for his son, free of violence.
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Cuba
Returned to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, under MPP
In a barren shelter in Nuevo Laredo, Keiny and his seven-months-pregnant wife are counting the days until their immigration court date later this month. They are among Laredo’s first scheduled MPP hearings and have been in the border city since July with no lawyer and no money, only “faith in God and the truth.” With the savings from a food cart he ran in Cuba, the couple paid about $475 each for a flight to Nicaragua. From there, they went by bus to Honduras, Guatemala and into Mexico. Frustrated by the long waits and dangers asylum-seekers face on Nuevo Laredo’s streets, Keiny insists returning to Cuba is not possible for him and his wife. It’s his fourth attempt to leave Cuba for good. The first three were by boat. When he was returned, he was forced to pay hefty fines and says his family was surveilled. If his asylum bid fails and he is sent back again, he fears punishment in the form of jail, or even torture. “I don’t feel safe in my country. The police and government do what they want.”
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Democratic Republic of Congo
Released to temporary nonprofit migrant facility in San Antonio, Texas