JUAREZ (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th January, 2020) Several Central American migrants sat on cold benches in the Casa del Migrante shelter on a gloomy winter day, reflecting on the dangerous journey to the United States, the losses along the way, and the small fume of optimism they are trying to keep alive despite Trump administration policies designed to shatter their hopes.
About 56,000 asylum-seekers along the US southern border have been subjected to the administration's Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which requires them to remain in Mexico as they await their immigration proceedings. However, very few migrants have been given asylum.
The city of Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, has long been the site of bloody turf battles between rival cartels fighting for control of drug corridors in the region.
In fact, Juarez has one of the highest per capita homicide rates on earth. The city, with a population of about 1.5 million, saw nearly 1,500 reported killings in 2019, according to El Paso's KVIA broadcaster. The record high of more than 3,000 homicides set in 2010 made it the world's deadliest metropolis.
In short - not a very safe place to force migrants to wait.
Back at the migrant shelter in this dangerous city, a shrine of the Virgin Mary - also known as the Lady of Guadalupe - watched over Veronica Gomez, 24, of Guatemala, who stood against the frigid wind and light rain while praying.
"Lawyers have said there's no possibility to cross [into the United States] unless we are in danger of death or someone is chasing us, then maybe someone will have a possibility to cross into the United States," Gomez told Sputnik. "So, I renounced my asylum hearing that they gave me and I'm going to return to my country."
HIGH-RISK JOURNEY: DEADLY WATERS, THEFT, KIDNAPPING
During their journey to the US border, asylum-seekers are often forced to navigate perilous waters while avoiding being exploited by human smugglers.
Migrants also face the risk of being kidnapped, tortured or even killed.
Gomez spent fifteen days traveling with her baby boy on such a journey - from Guatemala to the United States, only to be sent back to Mexico with her court date scheduled on March 11 - with no promising outcome.
She said she paid $3,000 to someone, who was probably a human smuggler, to take her to the US border. Some migrants, she added, have paid human smugglers up to $12,000.
"We were packed very tightly in buses and they dropped us off in dark wooden areas. The trip is so difficult one would not want to make the journey again," Gomez said. "We were on the edge of death."
Esther Flores Lopez, 37, of Honduras, said she left everything behind - a home with a television and refrigerator - to seek a more stable life for her 15-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son.
Along the way, however, they were also exploited by human smugglers.
"There are people that approach you and tell you that they can help you at a low cost and that they can help you get residency, humanitarian help," Flores said. "I was able to pay a person - with the money and items I brought from my country - and they were supposed to help me but they took my money and didn't help me with anything."
After being stuck in the Mexican city of Tapachula, Flores said she made the decision to take matters into her own hands. Flores and her children eventually reached the US border and crossed the waist-high Rio Grande River near the Mexican town of Ojinaga and were apprehended by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in the Texas town of Presidio.
Many migrants have drowned crossing the river after getting swept by strong currents.
Flores said conditions at the CBP holding facility in Presidio were good and that agents were "attentive, excellent." However, the mood changed when they arrived at a Federal immigration facility in the Texas border town of El Paso.
"They would yell, like intimidating," Flores said. "I would tell them not to treat me like that, I'm also human, [and they'd say] 'you're in a country where you don't belong, I can deport you, you know you're going to be deported because you're here as a detainee and not on vacation.'"
Flores and her children were returned to Mexico and placed in the Juarez shelter five days before Christmas.
Casa del Migrante social worker Ivonne Lopez told Sputnik that migrants under the MPP program have become victims of kidnap, torture and rape while waiting in Mexico. However, at her shelter itself there have been no security issues.
Nearly 200 migrants housed at the Casa del Migrante shelter have access to three hot meals a day, beds, showers, hygiene products, clothes and medicine.
To pass the time, migrant children played soccer on the concrete basketball court, the men sat in groups smoking cigarettes as they conversed amongst themselves while their clothes was hung and drying over the barbed wire fences of the shelter. Other migrants huddled in groups to keep warm from the chilly breeze rolling into town.
MIGRANTS HOPE FOR CHANGE IN 2020 ELECTIONS
Lopez said the flow of migrants coming to the US-Mexico border, specifically in Juarez in this case, has not been hindered by the implementation of new US immigration policies.
"I'm sure they [migrants] have hope to be able to cross [into the United States], but I don't expect this to change," Lopez said when asked if there's hope for migrants in the upcoming elections.
Most migrants must wait up to five months to appear before a US judge for their asylum proceedings, Lopez said.
Gladys Yaxcal, 33, of Guatemala, told Sputnik she hopes Trump will have a change of heart and become sympathetic towards migrants.
"[MPP] is a long process, ugly, sad. For one coming with kids, the kids suffer. One as an adult can deal with it," Yaxcal said. "So I would hope Trump would change those [immigration] laws. We're humans, creations of God and we deserve the best. They have a lot of money, they discriminate against us as migrants but we have necessities like job security."
Juan Magana, 22, of Mexico, came from the Mexican state of Michoacan with his wife and 3 year old son after he received threats from a criminal organization.
Magana, who sat on a bench smoking a cigarette as his kid played with other kids in the yard, said Mexican nationals seeking asylum in the United States do not get put on a waiting list handled by US immigration officials, like it's done for Central American migrants. Instead, Mexicans must coordinate the process amongst themselves.
The process gets delayed when migrants enter the United States illegally instead of going through the waiting list, Magana said.
"We don't get too sad because we know we're here a short distance away," Magana said.
When asked if there's hope Trump will be defeated in the elections and replaced by a Democratic candidate, Magana said, "That's the hope."
Democratic Party lawmakers have been critical of Trump's immigration policies which they have characterized as cruel and overly strict. However, the Trump administration has argued that stricter immigration laws are necessary to stem the flood of crime pouring over the border and threatening US national security.
VIOLENCE AT HOME LEADS TO ASYLUM-SEEKING MISSION
Migrants in the Northern Triangle countries - Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador - mostly flee to the United States to escape violence and poverty.
"Sincerely, for me that I'm Guatemalan, I believe that the [Guatemalan] government is bad because there is a lot of unemployment and delinquency," Yaxcal said. "If you put up a store, the extortionists come to you and if you don't pay the monthly quota they kill you and it's over. There's a lot of danger. There's not much security."
Yaxcal said she lost her job at a factory in Guatemala last March, so she decided to open a vending stand that made matters just as bad. Gangs demanded money so she closed her little store and made the trip to the United States with her 12-year-old daughter.
Moreover, Yaxcal said she was a victim of domestic violence as well.
"It's been two years since my daughter's father threatened me by having his cousin kidnap me," said Yaxcal, who has her asylum court proceeding scheduled on March 12.
Magana, like Yaxcal, was also a victim of extortion. He said he had a water purification company in his hometown, but he was forced to close it down after a criminal organization kept harassing him and taking his money.
Flores said she faced threats from her employers in the government-run clinic in Honduras. She worked in the pharmacy department at the clinic, but was troubled by some of the pro-government activities they were forced to attend.
"They would order us to go participate in [political] demonstrations because our jobs depended on it," Flores said. "So I would go do it. The marches were in support of the [government]. Like there's people [that] march for [the president] and like he does have people [backing him up], but all of that is a consequence of work. If you didn't do it, they let you go."
Flores said she was eventually fired from her job because she refused to participate in the demonstrations.
The Honduran woman said she was told to not discuss what went on at work or else it would be "costly" and "to think of her family."
If their asylum claims are denied in the United States, Flores said she will look into relocating to the Mexican city of Monterrey, where there are many factory jobs. She refuses to live in Juarez because of the high level of organized crime in the city.
Flores, however, remains hopeful for the future of her kids. She wants security for her children, including a good education - and wants to avoid the fate of many mothers who no longer have their kids because they have been killed or taken by gangs.
"It's better to receive a distant phone call than not getting one, [or] having to go to a cemetery and leave flowers for my son," Flores concluded.
