EAGLE PASS, Texas — Daniel Bermudez’s family had fled Venezuela and was headed to the United States to seek asylum when immigration officials stopped the freight train they were traveling on through Mexico.
His wife tried to explain to him that his family had permission to go to the United States.
Instead, she was flown to Mexico’s southern border as part of a wave of law enforcement actions that U.S. officials say have contributed to a sharp drop in illegal border crossings.
In addition to forcing migrants off trains, Mexico also resumed flights and bus transportation to the southern part of the country and began flying some to their homes in Venezuela.
Although temporary, the decrease in illegal crossings is good news for the White House.
President Joe Biden’s administration is locked in talks with Senate negotiators over restricting asylum, and $110 billion in aid to Ukraine and Israel is at stake.
Bermudez said his wife became separated from her family when she spoke to authorities while he was collecting his stepson and his belongings.
Texas Department of Public Safety police officers with immigrants in Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 3, 2024. AP Photo/Eric Gay
He wanted to apply, but his wife said they shouldn’t because they had followed procedure in making an appointment with US immigration authorities.
“I told him, ‘Don’t trust them. Let’s go into the bush,’” Bermúdez said, adding that other migrants had fled. He recalled her telling him: “Why are you sending us back if we have a date?”
Last week, Bermúdez, her stepson and two other relatives waited for her at a shelter in the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras while she took a bus back in hopes of making it to the date.
Mexico’s immigration agency sent at least 22 flights from its border region with the United States to southern cities during the last 10 days of December, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data.
Migrants line up to be processed after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico in Eagle Pass on Jan. 4, 2024. AP Photo/Eric Gay
Most were from Piedras Negras, which is just across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas.
Mexico also carried out two expulsion flights to Venezuela with 329 migrants.
The section was marked by the visit of Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Mexico City on December 28 to face unprecedented crossings into the United States.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the financial shortfall that had led the immigration agency to suspend deportations and other operations had been resolved. He did not offer details.
Arrests for illegal crossings into the United States from Mexico fell to about 2,500 on Monday, down from more than 10,000 on several days in December, according to U.S. authorities.
Mexican police patrolling the border in Piedras Negras, Mexico, on Jan. 4, 2024. AP Photo/Eric Gay
In the Border Patrol’s most active area, arrests totaled 13,800 during the seven-day period ending Friday, down 29% from 19,400 two weeks earlier, according to Tucson, Arizona, sector chief John Modlin.
The drop prompted U.S. Customs and Border Protection to reopen the port of entry in Lukeville, Arizona, on Thursday after a month-long closure on the most direct route from Phoenix to its nearest beaches.
The United States also restored operations at Eagle Pass and three other locations.
Merchants in Eagle Pass, a city of about 30,000 people, saw sales take “a big hit” as a bridge was closed to vehicle traffic so border agents could be reassigned to help process migrants, the government said. Maverick County Judge Ramsey English Cantu.
“We survive practically everything that comes from the Mexican side,” he said.
Last month, CBP resumed cargo crossings at Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, after a five-day closure that U.S. officials said was a response to up to 1,000 migrants traveling on a single train through Mexico before of trying to cross the border on foot.
On Thursday, in Piedras Negras, the Casa del Migrante was housing about 200 migrants, compared to 1,500 recently.
Among them was Manuel Rodríguez, 40, who said his family will miss his appointment to request asylum that was made through the US government’s CBP One application.
He said that the appointment was registered with his in-laws, who were deported to Venezuela after authorities boarded the bus in which they were traveling.
“Everything was in his name and he lost everything,” Rodríguez said.
The proposals being discussed by White House and Senate negotiators include a new removal authority that would deny the right to seek asylum if illegal border crossings reach a certain threshold.
A guard stands guard at the border near Eagle Pass on Jan. 3, 2024. AP Photo/Eric Gay
Any such authority would almost certainly depend on Mexico’s willingness to accept back non-Mexicans who enter the United States illegally, something it now does on a limited scale.
Mexico’s support was instrumental in overturning Trump-era policies that forced 70,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in a U.S. immigration court and deny the right to seek asylum during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., warned against exaggerating Mexico’s role in the recent drop in trafficking.
Panama reported that fewer than 25,000 migrants walked through the Darien jungle in December, about half the level in October and a sign that fewer people are leaving South America for the United States.
Migration usually slows down in December amid the holidays and cold weather.
“The United States can lean on Mexico for a short-term enforcement effect on migration at the border, but the long-term effects are not always clear,” Selee said.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn