EL PASO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th March, 2021) Gabriel and his family from Honduras are facing less obstacles seeking asylum in the United States under the Biden administration compared to his first attempt in 2019, which was followed with a 15-month stay at a makeshift migrant camp in the border town of Matamoros, Mexico, due to strict Trump-era immigration policies.
In late February, Gabriel and his family were among the first groups of asylum-seeking migrants allowed into the United States after the Biden administration decided to grant entry to 25,000 individuals who had pending immigration proceedings.
"The treatment from CBP [US Customs and Border Protection] when we arrived [in 2019] was rude and a bit intimidating, but now that we crossed, it was more friendly," Gabriel told Sputnik. "The difficult thing about the US immigration facilities [in 2019] is that they separated you from your family, they yell at your children and that makes you feel bad because they are very young children sometimes and they do not know what is happening and there are shouts of mockery."
Gabriel declined to give further information about his and his family members' identities over privacy concerns.
In a press briefing Wednesday, White House Coordinator for the US Southern Border Ambassador Roberta Jacobson said 1,400 MPP migrants have been granted entry into the United States so far. US immigration authorities are processing small groups of MPP migrants each day, beginning with 25 and ramping up to 300 in the coming weeks.
Although there is no guarantee Gabriel and his family will have their asylum claims approved, he is thankful for the glimpse of hope.
"We are going to court so that our asylum application is heard, it will be a judge who defines what will happen to us, but just being here [in United States] means that we are saved," Gabriel said. "I hope the judge can see and hear our request and make a favorable decision."
US immigrant rights groups have provided Gabriel and his family with housing while he waits for his request for a temporary work permit to process, he said. Regarding novel coronavirus concerns, Gabriel noted they do not have access to vaccines but they recently tested negative for the disease before coming to the United States.
In the last 15 months, Gabriel and his family were required to wait in Mexico due to the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, which required asylum-seeking migrants to wait in Mexico as they waited for their immigration court proceedings to process in the United States.
The wait in Mexico was drawn-out by the novel coronavirus pandemic that broke out in the United States at the beginning of January 2020, leading to postponed US immigration court hearings throughout the year.
"I [first] crossed to the United States on November 20, 2019 and waited 15 months," Gabriel said. "My children had a difficult time, we lived 10 months in the [migrant] camp."
The Honduran family found residence in a makeshift migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, a town that shares the US-Mexico border with the Texas city of Brownsville just across the Rio Grande river. The towns are located in the southern tip of Texas near the Gulf of Mexico. The region is known as the Rio Grande Valley and stretches 320 river miles, covering 19 Texas counties. For many years, the region has been a major destination for migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
Criminal organizations engaged in extortion, climate change affecting agricultural jobs, and corrupt government institutions have pushed millions of nationals from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to migrate to the United States. However, the situation has remained dire for MPP migrants waiting along the border in Mexico, where they faced extortion from criminal organizations that control major drug corridors where illicit drugs flow across the border.
"Emotionally, we were all affected and our health was a little affected at the beginning due to the conditions that were in the place: flu, cough, stomach infections," Gabriel said. "The camp was a difficult place but leaving it was very difficult because we hardly knew Matamoros and it is dangerous."
In Honduras, Gabriel worked as the manager at an appliance company and also sold food from his home to support his family, but extortion from criminal gangs left him unable to make a living for his family. He said he moved three times during his time Honduras, but was then left with no choice but to leave the country.
"I left my country because of extortion that began since 2017 and on October 27, 2019 I left because I could no longer take it," Gabriel said. "When I left it took me 23 days to arrive [to the US border]."
LOOMING CRISIS AT THE US SOUTHERN BORDER
On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 100,000 illegal migrants in the Rio Grande Valley sector, which includes Brownsville and other nearby border towns like McAllen, since the beginning of this year.
The current apprehension numbers are on pace to beat the previous mass migration flow that happened in fiscal year 2019, which saw a total of 977,509 apprehensions.
Republican lawmakers and state officials in the Republican state of Texas have been expressing deep concern about the influx of migrants illegally crossing into the United States because it is starting to strain US immigration resources along the Texas-Mexico border.
Data from US Customs and Border Protection data shows that 100,441 migrants were apprehended at the US southern border in February, a significant jump from 78,442 migrants that were apprehended in January.
A total of 396,958 migrants have been apprehended at the US southern border in fiscal year 2021, which began in October.
The data shows that since October, about 317,590 migrants have been "expelled," turned away immediately at the border under a public health-related policy known as Title 42. The highest number of migrants expelled in fiscal year 2021 occurred in February with 70,183 expulsions.
As of February 27, ICE has completed 29,944 deportations since October.
The White House has warned asylum-seeking migrants coming to the border that they will be turned away since the Biden administration does not have a "humane" policy to process their claims.
