Conditions deteriorating at makeshift camp on the Rio Grande where thousands await U.S. asylum

[TexasTowelie]

by Acacia Coronado, Texas Tribune


MATAMOROS, Mexico — The makeshift shelters are clustered just past the river’s edge, a rainbow of tarp colors, woven with trash bags and held together with sticks, stones and metal rods that have become home to an estimated 2,000 migrants from Honduras to El Salvador, Nicaragua to Mexico.

Some have lived here for months; all of them are waiting for decisions on asylum claims that may never succeed.

This refugee camp yards from the Texas border has been here since summer 2018, but it has grown exponentially since July — the result of Trump administration policies aimed at forcing migrants to wait south of the river before and after requesting asylum. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, agreed to these policies after Trump threatened tariffs, but the Mexican government isn’t providing much help to the migrants camped on its northern border.

Yasmara said she and her young son arrived from El Salvador a month ago, fleeing threats their family received from local criminals. She said they arrived upriver at Reynosa, where they asked for asylum and were initially taken into custody while their case was processed. They were then taken to the Gateway International Bridge between Brownsville and Matamoros to await their asylum hearings in Mexico.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2019/10/25/conditions-deteriorating-migrant-camp-thousands-await-asylum/