Lupita, a 36-year-old Mexican from the state of Michoacán, has spent three months in a shelter waiting to apply for asylum in the United States. He shows off some of the evidence to support his case: gunshot wounds to his arms, shoulder and abdomen.
Since March 2020, when sweeping Covid-19-era restrictions went into effect on the southwest border, Mexicans like Lupita have been barred from applying for refuge in the United States and instead were promptly expelled back to Mexico.
On Friday, that changed when the administration of the president of the United States, Joe Bidenended Title 42, a provision inspired by the coronavirus pandemic that allowed the US government to reject asylum seekers for public health reasons.
Immigration lawyers from a shelter in Tijuanaacross the border from San Diego, California, advised migrants that if they wanted a chance at asylum, they should make an appointment to come to a port of entry through a new government app known as CBP One. .
At the same time that Title 42 was expiring, the Biden administration launched a new regulation that presumes that the majority of migrants will not be entitled to asylum if they do not use legal routes to enter the United States as CBP One.
Lupita, who is now trying to get an appointment through CBP One, said she fled her home after her husband was killed last year in a cartel shooting attack during which she said she was injured.
Pointing his elbows toward the ceiling, he showed the scars left by the sutures where they had sewn him up. The outline of a colostomy bag – which she says was the result of a shot to the intestines – is visible through her clothing.
Lupita, who asked not to publish her last name or be photographed for fear of retaliation, said prosecutors told her the attack was a case of mistaken identity, but she fears that witnessing her husband’s murder could put her and her family in danger. children. Reuters has not been able to independently confirm her account.
“This is more than anything for my children,” Lupita said. “I can’t go back,” she emphasized.
Mexicans have made up about a third of all migrants apprehended by the US Border Patrol in recent years, but in 2021 and 2022 they were removed under Title 42 more than 90% of the time.
Safe place
At the shelter, where children played with bicycles and skateboards around tents set up on the ground, there were also families from Honduras, Ecuador, El Salvador and Nicaragua, as well as Mexico. On Friday it was packed, with almost 60 people.
Judith Cabrera de la Rocha, co-director of the shelter in Tijuana, explained that many migrant families are fleeing political violence or mistreatment at home, traumas that often worsen during the overland journey through Central America and Mexico, where they are prey to all kinds of pressure from security forces and criminal groups.
“They often arrive here malnourished, dehydrated, even pregnant women, and with severe mental health consequences,” Cabrera said. Added to “that the reason they left is because of traumatic experiences,” she added.
“I like to think of the place as a place for healing,” he said of the shelter. “We give a relatively safer space,” she added.
The new rule also bars asylum for most immigrants who have passed through other countries without seeking protection elsewhere, which would apply to most people who are not from Mexico but who traveled through there to reach the border.
Immigration advocates have filed a legal challenge against the new asylum restrictions, saying they violate U.S. and international law and resemble limitations imposed by Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, that were blocked in court.
Tens of thousands of migrants rushed the border this week trying to enter the United States before new asylum rules took effect. Mexico’s immigration authority said a 29-year-old Cuban migrant died trying to swim across the Rio Grande into Texas early Friday.
The surge in recent arrivals has put a strain on US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities.
The Justice Department has asked a federal judge in Florida to temporarily stay an order he issued Friday that prevents border agents from releasing migrants in custody without first giving them formal notices to appear in immigration court.
The government claims that this practice is necessary to prevent overcrowding in US detention centers.
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