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      Vigilante fears as Texas Republicans push for special unit to detain migrants

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      A new Texas bill could soon establish a taskforce using civilians that would have the authority to “arrest, apprehend or detain persons crossing the Texas-Mexico border unlawfully”, raising concerns around state-sponsored vigilantism.House Bill 20, authored by Republican state representative Matt Schaefer, seeks to create a new “border protection unit” that would deter migrants from unlawfully entering Texas using non-deadly force. It could include civilians with prior military experience among its members – such as national guards or former border patrol agents – who would be granted some immunity from prosecution for actions they carried out as members of the force.The HB20 bill itself was killed last week in the Texas legislature but then quickly resurrected as HB7 – a slightly different amendment to existing immigration legislation. The proposed unit was renamed the “Texas border force” and put under the command of the Texas ranger division.With a Republican majority in both the state house and senate, the fresh bill seems likely to pass.Bernardo Cruz, an attorney for the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told the Guardian: “It’s really an unlawful action or exercise by the state government. We are really afraid it’s going to lead to more racial profiling of current migrants, and also that it affects everyone who lives across the border and the states.”Although immigration law and enforcement on the US border is under federal jurisdiction, border states like Texas argue they have the right to protect themselves if the federal government fails to do so, as per the “invasion” clause of the US constitution.Such a drastic move by a state to enforce federal immigration law is likely to end up in court.Schaefer, one of the Texas legislature’s most conservative members, said in a statement: “Enough is enough. If [Joe] Biden won’t defend this country, we will.”The news of the bill comes shortly after the expiration of Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that gave US officials authority to turn away migrants who came to the US-Mexico border claiming asylum in order to prevent the spread of Covid-19.Immigration and civil rights activists have condemned the legislation and said its potential passage was “disheartening”. These critics of the bill, such as the non-profit Human Rights Watch, say it will embolden state-sponsored vigilantism.Testifying in front of the Texas house state affairs committee in April, Bob Libal of Human Rights Watch said the border protection unit would lead to the “codification and expansion of a border policing, court and jailing system that has to date resulted in injuries, deaths, racial discrimination, abusive detention conditions, and a chilling effect on freedoms of association and expression.”The unit would be overseen by the Texas public safety department and would controversially give its officers broad authority to make arrests, build border barriers and search vehicles they deem suspicious.Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, told the Dallas Morning News that she was “appalled by this dangerous and unconstitutional proposal designed to violate federal law at the expense of the border community I call home”.She added: “Not only does this bill mobilize a new military force under the governor, it also allows the head of the force to deputize almost anyone to enforce federal immigration law, including vigilante groups that have targeted Texas border communities.”The ACLU’s Cruz said the unit would be an extension of Operation Lone Star, another state effort to secure the US border with Mexico, launched by the rightwing Republican governor, Greg Abbott, in March 2021.Operation Lone Star is a joint operation between the public safety department and the Texas national guard. It was established during an increase of migrants at the state’s border for which Abbott issued a disaster declaration.“Texas does not have the authority to enforce immigration law,” Cruz said. “There’s clear both federal law and supreme court precedent that establishes that the appropriate entity to enforce immigration laws in this country are federal law enforcement agencies.”Like Operation Lone Star, Cruz said the new border protection unit would lead to racial profiling.In a federal complaint filed in July last year, the Texas ACLU, along with the Texas Civil Rights Project, alleged state troopers excessively pull over Latinos as part of Operation Lone Star. The complaint also said at least 30 people were killed in state police car chases connected to Texas’s expansive border security operation.“We really afraid it’s going to lead to more racial profiling of migrants and also that it affects everyone who lives across the border and the states. There’s nothing in the language it just narrows it to specific area of Texas. So this really is an extremely broad attempt by the state of Texas, to really just militarize communities.“And that, of course, impacts everyone’s day-to-day life in a negative way.” More

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      Republicans aren’t fixing the migrant border plight. In fact they’re making it worse | Andrew Gawthorpe

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      Last week saw the end of Title 42, the Trump-era border restriction which was technically introduced as a health measure during the coronavirus pandemic. The policy allowed the Trump and then Biden administrations to expel without due process the vast majority of people seeking asylum at the United States-Mexico border. Given that the acute phase of the pandemic has passed, the end of the policy – which has been used about 2.7m times – was inevitable.But the end of Title 42 has also reignited the political firestorm over the US immigration and refugee system. Republicans have seemed to gleefully anticipate “chaos” and “disaster” at the border after the policy is lifted. Less biased observers are also concerned that the US refugee processing system will be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of people now expected to seek asylum. The Biden administration has come under fierce criticism from the left for a tough new policy of questionable legality which requires most refugees to seek asylum from abroad using a glitchy cellphone app called CBP One.Not to be outdone, Republicans have responded to the situation by promising to return to the failed and cruel policies of the past. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has passed a bill which would order the resumption of Trump’s border wall and eviscerate the right to asylum for those who reach the US. Meanwhile, speaking at a CNN town hall last week, Trump defended his policy of family separation and indicated that he would consider reinstating it if he became president again.All of these proposals show that even though there are many reasons to be concerned about the humanitarian situation at the southern border, Republicans have no solutions to it. Migration is driven by human suffering and the desire for a better and safer life, rooted in structural factors like the climate crisis, human rights violations and economic inequality. US government policies have some impact, but they’re not determinative. If people could be prevented from seeking asylum through angry posturing or cruel policies like family separation, then it’s hard to explain why 2019 – a year when Trump was president – saw the largest number of arrivals in 12 years.What’s even worse is that the policies that Republicans want to pursue in other areas of life only make the structural factors underlying migration more severe. The party is opposed to serious efforts to tackle the climate crisis, and it cut foreign aid to Central America under Trump – in some cases actually as punishment for the arrival of migrants at the border. Furthermore, the weak US gun laws which Republicans back create an “iron river” of firearms flowing into Mexico and Central America, where 70% and 50% of guns used in crimes are traced back to the US.The party also has a long history of promoting US military intervention in Latin America, which has caused instability and propped up the regimes that fuel the inequality and violence of today. Republicans are busy right now proposing that the US invade Mexico to take out its drug cartels, an action that would contribute to the country’s insecurity and undoubtedly fuel an increase in migration northwards.If Republicans wanted to actually help deal with the refugee crisis, there are many things they could do. They could join with Democrats to properly fund the system of refugee centers, in which the number of detainees is already exceeding capacity, and immigration courts, where some refugees have been waiting more than a decade for a hearing. They could try to advance proposals to work constructively with the nations with which the United States shares a hemisphere to tackle common problems like the climate crisis, economic inequality and gun violence. And they could work to expand, rather than contract, legal pathways to citizenship and asylum.The Biden administration is now working to do just that, announcing plans to set up immigration processing centers throughout Latin America, with the first to open in Guatemala and Colombia in the coming weeks. Eventually, the administration hopes to reduce the need for desperate people to arrive at the border by offering them an opportunity to apply for asylum from elsewhere. This should not only dial down the political heat at home, but much more importantly mean that would-be migrants don’t have to suffer the harrowing journey north, which for many ends in abuse or death.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut these plans can only be effective and sustainable over the long term with the cooperation of Republicans, both in Congress and in future administrations. For that to happen, the party would need to start seeing immigrants and refugees as fellow human beings in need of assistance rather than as enemies to be quashed. Only then can America really make progress in tackling this problem and escaping the cycle of cruelty in which it is currently trapped.
      Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University and the creator of America Explained, a newsletter and podcast More

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      Border crossings reportedly decrease after Title 42 rules scrapped

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      Crossings at the US border with Mexico have dropped 50% after Title 42 restrictions ended at the end of Thursday and the Biden White House implemented an arguably tougher immigration policy, American homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Sunday.Mayorkas’s remarks on Sunday were a defense of the policy which replaced the expired measure that allowed border officials to expel migrants 2.7m times to their home country or Mexico without hearing their asylum claims, ostensibly to limit the spread of Covid-19.Advocates have argued that the new Biden restrictions mimic two Donald Trump-era policies, but Mayorkas defiantly touted the updated measures, saying on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the “US Border Patrol has experienced a 50% drop in the number of encounters versus what we were experiencing earlier in the week before Title 42 ended”.The rules now bar migrants from asylum if they don’t request refugee status in another country before entering the US. Mayorkas added that, on Friday, border patrol officers had detained 6,300 migrants and about 4,200 on Saturday, down from more than 10,000 “before the end of Title 42 earlier last week”.Mayorkas’s cited reduction in border crossings is what the administration expected when announcing the new asylum restriction. Mayorkas had previously said “the border is not open”, attempting to send a clear message to migrants on the Mexican side. He had also said that those who don’t pursue legal pathways to the US could face a “five-year ban on re-entry and potential criminal prosecution”.The numbers appeared to be an early projection of what could happen in the upcoming weeks and months amid the Biden administration’s new border policy. In some areas at the border such as Texas’s Rio Grande valley, agents apprehended 1,133 migrants, representing a 66% decrease as compared with the highest mark, 3,300, during the last fiscal year in the area, according to chief border patrol agent Gloria Chavez.Nonetheless, there were still signs of the border attracting prospective migrants. More than 1,500 miles (2,400km) west, near the San Ysidro port of entry in California, hundreds of people were sitting on cardboard boxes on a sloping hill between the two barriers that form the border walls.Those people – mostly women and children – were on US soil, just steps away from Tijuana, Mexico, having crossed the actual border between the two countries. But they were stuck in an area between two 30ft (10-meter) walls, waiting at the time to be processed by border patrol. “When we first came out here the first few days, there were maybe 100, 150 – then gradually, it started to increase to 200, 250,” said Robert Vivar, an immigration missioner with the San Diego Episcopal diocese. “On a daily basis, [border patrol agents] come in and go and take women and children for processing.”Friends of Friendship Park Committee members, such as Vivar and Pedro Rios, along with other activists and observers, called it an “open-air detention center”. There were few visible services: just one portable toilet for 400 to 800 people.Activists insisted they have seen an increase in the number of people showing up in the last week. The agency said it had nearly 25,000 migrants in custody on Thursday. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they would increase the number of beds by several thousand.However, the scene between the border walls was orderly. Children smiled through the thick, rusted bollards at volunteers who handed out crayons and notepads just three days after Mexico celebrated Mother’s Day and one day before the US recognized the holiday.One young boy squeezed a new stuffed animal tightly.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionReligious groups and nonprofits in San Diego have organized an impromptu service site on the Mexican side of the wall that included a charging table for phones handed through the wall, and bins of donations – toilet paper, diapers, sanitary pads, first aid items, clothing and food.There were rows of water bottles lined up in the barrier. Volunteers kept arriving throughout the afternoon: families dropped off donations, high schoolers showed up to hand out food and a minister walked along a stretch of the wall to get individual requests from new arrivals. People who spoke Spanish, French, Arabic and English came to the wall to ask for jackets, warm pants and socks as the sun set and the California desert turned cold.A half mile to the west, border patrol agents monitored a men’s encampment on a windy hill. Volunteers loaded donations, mainly blankets and tarps, on to the agency’s trucks that offered to drive them up to the men’s group. Some of the attendees confirmed to the Guardian that the donations were delivered. Organizers are less certain about where people ended up when the border patrol took groups of 60 to 70 people for processing from either camp.A federal judge in Florida on Friday blocked a Biden policy of expediting the release of some migrants to prevent overcrowding in border patrol facilities. Consequently, the administration asked the judge, Kent Wetherell, to pause his ruling because it could force border patrol agents to decline arrests in order to mitigate the overcrowding conditions.Wetherell denied the Biden administration’s request, dismissing it as “borderline frivolous”. The Biden White House has said it plans to appeal the ruling. More

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      Title 42 migration restrictions have ended, but Biden’s new policy is tougher

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      As the Title 42 pandemic-era rule ended at midnight on Thursday, Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security and a former Cuban refugee, issued a stern warning to would-be migrants, saying: “People who arrive at the border without using a lawful pathway will be presumed ineligible for asylum.”In many ways, Mayorkas’s statement directly contradicted some of the promises Joe Biden made as a candidate during the 2020 presidential election. Then Biden had pledged to dismantle Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda, calling the numerous restrictions his rival enacted to shut off access to the US asylum system “cruel”.After taking office, Biden reversed some of Trump’s border policies, including a program that required asylum-seekers to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities while their cases were reviewed by US courts.But for more than a year, Biden kept, and defended in court, Trump’s most sweeping border restriction: the Title 42 emergency order that allowed agents to cite the Covid-19 pandemic to quickly expel migrants without hearing asylum claims.The Biden administration in 2022 tried to phase out Title 42, but was blocked by a lawsuit filed by Republicans in 19 states. By the time it ended – due to the expiration of the Covid-19 public health emergency – Title 42 had been used to expel migrants over 2.7m times from the US southern border, according to government statistics.But Biden is now replacing Title 42 with an arguably tougher, more restrictive policy. His administration on Friday started implementing a rule barring migrants from asylum if they don’t request refugee status in another country before entering the US.Advocates suggested that such a restriction mimics two Trump-era policies known as the “entry” and “transit” asylum bans which were consequently blocked by courts. As a result, the new restrictive border control has already been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrants’ rights groups in federal court.“This new rule is no less illegal or harmful. It will effectively eliminate asylum for nearly all non-Mexican asylum seekers who enter between designated ports of entry, and even for those who present at a port without first securing an appointment,” the complaint says.Thousands of migrants anticipating the end of Title 42 crossed into the US in record numbers this week along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. They gathered on the banks of the Rio Grande and gates near the border wall, waiting for their turn to be let into US soil.Nestor Quintero, who crossed the US border near El Paso, Texas, only to be expelled to Tijuana, recently returned to Ciudad Juárez, scared that once Title 42 was lifted, his chances to give his daughters a “better and safer life” would be diminished.Unable to secure an appointment using a government cellphone app known as CBP One for over a month, the Venezuelan decided to surrender himself along with his family at gate 47 at the border wall in El Paso last week.“We were detained for six days and then were given documents by the [immigration] officials,” said Quintero, 35, who left Venezuela after an opposition politician he had worked for disappeared.“We have a [court] date in September this year, but now we only worry about eating. We have no money and we are hungry.”Biden’s asylum restriction, announced the same day Quintero’s family was released from border patrol custody, could have led to them being deported and banned from entering the US for five years. If they attempted to re-enter the US, they would have faced criminal prosecution.One of the only ways to avoid facing deportation under the strict asylum rule is to secure an appointment to enter the US through the government app. In its first four months, over 83,000 individuals have successfully scheduled an appointment through CBP One, a DHS official told the Guardian.CBP recently announced changes to the app, increasing the number of appointments available to approximately 1,000 a day from 740. That could be an option for some of the estimated 60,000 migrants who the border patrol chief, Raul Ortiz, said are waiting in northern Mexico, but it is unclear how many are willing to wait.The number of migrants stranded in Mexico could also increase further due to the new policies. The Mexican government has agreed to continue accepting tens of thousands of Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan deportees from the US.Shelter directors in Mexico told the Guardian they are at capacity.“This agreement means that more than 360,000 people could come to a country that doesn’t have a federal or state system to help everyone,” said Rafael Velásquez, the country director for Mexico at the International Refugee Committee.In its effort to dissuade migrants from travelling north, the Biden administration has also partnered with the Colombian and Panamanian governments to create regional processing centers to screen migrants who could be eligible to enter the US legally. The White House is also allowing up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to fly to the US each month, as long as they have American financial supporters.Just before Mayorkas’s statement on the termination of Title 42, a federal judge in Florida blocked a Biden policy of expediting the release of some migrants to prevent overcrowding in porder patrol facilities. The agency said it had nearly 25,000 migrants in custody on Thursday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said it will increase the number of beds by several thousand.On the evening of 11 May, Quintero, who along with his wife and daughters were released from a detention center in El Paso, reached out to the Venezuelan relative he left behind in Ciudad Juárez, worried about his whereabouts.“He was sad because he is now alone in Mexico,” said Quintero, whose final destination is Chicago, but his court appointment is in Texas. “He thinks he got deported because he came by himself, with no children, to the US.” More

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      ‘The border is not open’: US immediately replaces Title 42 with strict new rules

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      The US late on Thursday ended pandemic-era restrictions at the US-Mexico border that blocked many migrants from their right to claim asylum in the US – but immediately replaced the so-called Title 42 restrictions with sweeping new policies designed to deter or even physically prevent people from crossing the border without permission.In an increasingly hard line from the Biden administration, the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, said on Thursday evening that 24,000 border patrol agents and officers had been sent to the border to enforce US laws, adding: “The border is not open.“Starting tonight, people who arrive at the border without using a lawful pathway will be presumed ineligible for asylum. We are ready to humanely process and remove people without a legal basis to remain in the US,” he said.The secretary added on Friday morning, appearing on CNN, of migrants arriving at the southern border: “We are taking them into our custody, we are screening and vetting them and if they do not have a basis to remain, we will remove them very swiftly.”Additionally, the state department announced a new website aimed at informing migrants how to access legal pathways into the US. The site, MovilidadSegura.org, was created with help from the UN Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration and other groups.In the hours before the new regulations went into effect, thousands of migrants waded through rivers, climbed walls and scrambled up embankments on to US soil, hoping to be processed before the new system went into effect at midnight US eastern time.In Matamoros, Mexico, at the eastern end of the border close to the Gulf of Mexico, groups crossed the Rio Grande river in chin-high water. Some carried tiny babies and bags of belongings above their heads to make it into Brownsville, Texas, to ask for refuge.They clutched cellphones above the water to light the way toward the US but, behind coils of razor wire, US authorities shouted for the migrants to turn back.As small children, tied together by their parents to stop them being washed to their deaths in the treacherous river, scrambled up the bank wearing brightly colored inflatable rings from the crossing, uniformed soldiers pointed back where they had come from and refused to part the wire to let them come in and exercise their right to seek asylum.“Be careful with the children,” an official shouted through a megaphone. “It is especially dangerous for the children.”The expired rule, known as Title 42, was in place since March 2020. It allowed border officials to quickly return asylum seekers back over the border on grounds of preventing the spread of Covid-19.While Title 42 prevented many from seeking asylum, it carried no legal consequences. After Thursday, migrants face being barred from entering the US for five years and possible criminal prosecution.In El Paso in west Texas, hundreds of migrants camped out on downtown streets trying to figure out where to go next after crossing the border from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.The first moments of the end of Title 42 in Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican twin city to El Paso, were met with initial silence.It was almost as if nothing had changed for the 500 migrants hoping to turn themselves in to US authorities outside Door 42 between Juárez and El Paso, a gate in the tall border barrier.The group had been waiting since late afternoon, surrounded by Texas national guard and border patrol agents, and entrapped by barbed wire.Throughout the afternoon and into the night, small groups were slowly allowed into the country, while the rest stood by.The hot afternoon grew colder as soon as the sun set. With no belongings, many struggled to keep warm. Their only option: dust-filled blankets, jackets and sweaters that migration authorities provided from a dumpster.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn the dark of the night, cellphones were alight as migrants attempted to book one of the few asylum appointments available online through an app administered by US federal authorities, called CBP One.Donald Trump, an anti-immigration hardliner, implemented the Title 42 public health rule in 2020 when the pandemic hit, but it was continued and even expanded by Joe Biden, despite campaign promises of a fairer and more humane system at the border. The policy has faced court battles and criticism from left and right.The order authorized border officials to immediately remove migrants, including people seeking asylum, overriding their normal rights. The Biden administration announced in January it was ending the declared national emergencies linked to the coronavirus spelling the end of using Title 42 to deal with immigration.Immigration advocates represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a legal challenge against the new asylum regulations on Thursday, minutes before they took effect.The groups said the Biden regulation “dramatically curtails the availability of asylum in the United States” and mirrored similar Trump-era policies blocked in court.Also on Thursday night, a federal judge in Florida blocked releases of migrants who have not yet got a date to appear in court, saying they were similar to a policy previously prohibited in March due to a failure to follow proper regulatory procedures. CBP did not respond to a request for comment.In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said it would comply with the court order, while the federal agency, echoed by Mayorkas on Friday morning, called it a “harmful ruling”.CBP said it “will result in unsafe overcrowding … and undercut our ability to efficiently process and remove migrants.”Judge Kent Weatherell blocked the releases for two weeks.Later on Friday it appeared that US authorities had taken up to 1,000 people who had been waiting to enter El Paso away for detention and processing in centers further along the border, to try to prevent a crush, CNN reported.Overcrowding fears are rising since the Florida court ruling will mean authorities having to hold many people for longer, until they have a court date. Processing under Title 42 was faster, with many quickly expelled, CNN reported.However immigration advocates worry that even the longer asylum processing in border facilities will be too hasty to be fair. More

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      ‘This was my last try’: dismay at US border as Title 42 ends and little changes

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      “My plan is to give up,” Fernando Jesús Manzano, 32, from the state of Falcón, Venezuela, said dejectedly as he gazed at the hundreds of fellow migrants waiting to turn themselves in to US migration authorities as Thursday turned into Friday and a new policy era at the US-Mexico border.Manzano arrived at “Door 42”, a gate along the border barrier in El Paso, west Texas, shortly before the expiration of Title 42, a Trump-era rule implemented during the coronavirus pandemic that allowed the US to turn away migrants at its border with Mexico without allowing them to exercise their right to seek asylum.The man was too late. US Customs and Border Protection, as well as Texas national guard soldiers, had already set up concertina wire and were heavily patrolling the area where Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, meets its twin city across the border, El Paso, by the time he arrived.The troops in camouflage, holding their rifles across their bodies in an intimidating stance, were not allowing him or any other migrants to approach the gate to request asylum.The crowd of about 500 people at this one site was neatly organized into two groups: single men in one and families in the other. Separating them were 15 portable restrooms and two large dumpsters where all of their belongings had been discarded.The US authorities expect migrants being processed at the border not to be encumbered by the small pieces of luggage many may have carried for months on dangerous overland trips from Central and South America, through Mexico to the border.“This was my last try. I’ll have to find a job in Juárez to save for a ticket back home, and return defeated,” Manzano said.Manzano, a professional barber, said that two months ago he fled Venezuela, which has been abandoned by more than 7 million of its citizens in the last eight years amid the political and economic crisis of Nicolás Maduro’s regime.He came desperately seeking better opportunities for himself, his wife and two infant children, in contrast to growing poverty in Venezuela where money, he said, was never enough no matter how hard he worked.Frustrated, he fought back tears as he recalled the two times he previously crossed the US border with Mexico in the last month without permission and was expelled back to Mexico by the authorities.The last time, he found a lawyer in the US to help him and was on his way to New York, when agents at a migration checkpoint told him the forms he had filled out were not valid.At the border more people arrived as the night progressed. On the bank of the Rio Grande 30 more people sat quietly, all hoping authorities would let them in last minute.“No pueden entrar [you can’t come in],” a Texas national guard soldier shouted across as he adjusted a coil of the concertina razor wire marking the line between the waiting people and America. At first his action prompted some to believe they would be let in, but then they all listened and sat back down.When the clock struck 10pm local time, midnight on the US east coast, the exact moment Title 42 expired, the atmosphere at the gate in the tall border barrier remained tensely silent.Only sporadically, when small vans arrived at the gate from the US side to pick up migrants who had been allowed through and take them elsewhere for processing, would migrants clap and cheer for a few seconds.But as the night progressed, the cold did too. Temperatures dropped enough for those waiting at the gate to want a second layer of clothing. The most readily available were the sweaters, jackets and blankets in the two dumpsters where migrants had discarded all of their belongings earlier in the evening.Some grabbed the items but shook them repeatedly to get rid of the thick layer of dust and debris covering them before putting them on.“They’re not letting us in, I don’t know why,” said Oscar Adrián Izaguirre Brito, 20, a mechanic from Caracas, Venezuela.Izaguirre Brito arrived at the gate thinking the end of Title 42 meant he would be able to cross to the US that night but was met with disappointment when he arrived.“I’m tired and I want to cry, I can’t keep talking,” Izaguirre Brito said.After describing himself as desperate, he explained that he was the oldest of 10 siblings and that his parents rely on him for support.He’s made multiple attempts at crossing the border, but this was the first time he had planned to turn himself in. The last time he was expelled for going across without permission, he said, was Wednesday night and then, when border patrol agents released him back into Mexico, three armed men robbed him and took his cellphone, he said. His parents still don’t know he’s in Mexico again, he added.Because he has a permit to work in Juárez, Izaguirre Brito will go back to the car repair shop he had been working at before crossing the border last week, trying to save money to buy a new phone. With it, he would be able to try to get one of the very limited appointments for an asylum interview through the US’s CBP One app.Joe Biden’s new hardline border policies, heavily criticized by immigration advocates and progressives, were starting to bite.“If I am given the opportunity, I will take it and take full advantage of it,” Izaguirre Brito said. More

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      Fear, anger and hope as Texas border city mourns migrants killed by truck

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      A vigil in Brownsville mourning eight men killed when a car crashed into migrants waiting at a bus stop drew local residents and migrant families on Monday evening expressing a mix of grief, anger, hope and love in the shaken border city.“My son is my whole life, and that man may have taken it,” a Venezuelan mother, Marilín de los Ángeles Medero Piña, lamented, sobbing desperately into the microphone.As the heat of the day began to cool, about 300 people gathered at Linear Park in downtown Brownsville at the eastern end of the US-Mexico border.The day before, a local man with an extensive criminal history – whom witnesses said was shouting anti-immigrant insults – had smashed into a group of people when he drove an SUV through a red light near a migrant shelter, killing eight and injuring 10 more.Medero Piña’s son, Héctor David Medina, 24, is missing and his family is trying to establish if he is among those injured or killed.“Help us, please. I want to find my son,” Medero Piña appealed to the crowd. “One moment they tell me he’s alive and the next that he’s dead.”Many clustered around the stricken mother, offering prayers, hugs and donations. With her were her husband and three other children. All wept, recounting how local police couldn’t tell them whether Medina was dead or alive.George Alvarez, 34, was charged on Monday with manslaughter. Investigators are yet to determine whether the crash was intentional and are awaiting toxicology reports. Brownsville authorities have not yet been able to name those killed.Among the speakers at the vigil were two Venezuelan men who survived the attack on Sunday.“I know God exists because he gave me another chance to live,” said Luis Herrera, one of the survivors.Unable to hold back his tears, Herrera thanked the people of Brownsville for their kindness.“Not all people are bad,” Herrera said. “This is a beautiful community.”According to Herrera and other witnesses, Alvarez yelled anti-immigrant statements and asked why so many migrants were “invading” the city.“It’s because the country I longed for, and once had, doesn’t exist any more,” said Crismar García, 34, from the state of Táchira in crisis-gripped Venezuela, who has been in Brownsville for a year navigating her asylum process, during the vigil.The strong sense of grief pervading migrants in the community for the previous 24 hours was for some surpassed by fear.Ronny García, 35, and Jesús Moreno, 35, both from the state of Bolívar in Venezuela, worried they will encounter more tragedy in the near future, after witnessing Sunday’s events.“Honestly, we’re scared,” said García. “Anything could happen to us.”Moreno explained how they believe migrants have become “dirty business,” as they had been repeatedly taken advantage of and blackmailed in their months-long overland journey to the US.“Especially in this part of Texas, close to the border – migrants have become cannon fodder,” Moreno said.Police are investigating reports of a man with a gun turning up at the Ozanam Center migrant shelter near the crash site on Monday, according to a local news outlet.With Title 42, a Covid-era government restriction on immigration, set to expire at just before midnight on Thursday, residents are concerned there will be a fresh influx of migrants to the city that will be overwhelming, even though most are aiming just to pass through.Last week the city declared a state of emergency – as did El Paso, in west Texas, where an estimated 2,000 people are stuck on the streets after crossing the border seeking refuge, and shelters are full.Marisela Camarillo, 53, a retired school teacher and lifelong Brownsville resident present at the vigil, said she thought there was “absolutely no way” her city was ready for what may unfold on Thursday and Friday.“It’s not the fact that migrants are coming that’s concerning, it’s the fact that we’re not ready,” Camarillo said. “We don’t have the resources, we’re not equipped, and the federal government is not stepping up.”The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, announced on Monday the deployment of what his office calls a tactical border force, a new military unit of the Texas guard specifically assembled to “intercept, repel and to turn back” migrants at the border.“That’s not what the state guard should be used for,” Camarillo said. “We should have been preparing for this all this time.”However, Victor Maldonado, executive director of the Ozanam Center, said he was fully prepared with extra beds and resources. He also assured there would be collaboration with the local authorities, religious organizations, and non-profits to guarantee safety, he said.Sister Norma Pimentel, a well-known nun and immigrants’ advocate in the area, who is the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, offered some words of encouragement at the vigil.“They’re people, and the only thing they want is an opportunity to live,” Pimentel said. “So let’s welcome them, and let’s love them.” More

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      in US Politics

      Texas: police name suspect after eight killed by truck plowing into crowd

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      Authorities have publicly identified the driver accused of killing several people after plowing his truck into a crowd that was waiting at a bus stop near a shelter serving migrants in a south Texas city.During a Monday morning news conference, police accused George Alvarez of killing eight people and injuring 10 others about 8.30am on Sunday in Brownsville.Police added that Alvarez was a Brownsville resident and had an “extensive” prior criminal record, including allegations of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and driving while intoxicated.Police also said that Alvarez attempted to leave the scene, but he was held down by several people until police arrived and arrested him.A local judge set bond for Alvarez at $3.6m. He was initially booked with reckless driving but faces additional charges, including manslaughter.Police have maintained that they have not determined whether Alvarez acted intentionally and have been unable to verify reports from witnesses that the driver was shouting anti-immigrant obscenities at the time of the crash.A Venezuelan migrant who escaped the crash said the driver, who killed eight people and injured 10, was shouting that immigrants were invading the US, along with other offensive remarks, Monitor News reported. The Guardian reported a similar witness statement.The majority of those injured and killed were Venezuelan, and police have confirmed that they were all men.The crash occurred outside an overnight shelter in Brownsville, Texas, which is near the state’s border with Mexico. The city’s only overnight shelter hosts unhoused people and migrants and has been at capacity for two months.Several people died at the scene, said authorities, with the eighth victim dying on Sunday night.According to surveillance video of the crash, the driver of the SUV ran a light and plowed into the waiting crowd at the bus stop.“What we see in the video is that this SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about a hundred feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” the shelter’s director, Victor Maldonado, told the media.As of Monday morning, the driver’s identity has not been released by authorities. Officials obtained a blood sample of the driver to check for possible intoxicants, but the results of those tests have also not been released, police said on Monday.Alvarez was reportedly being uncooperative and provided different names to authorities, delaying the public release of his identity, police said.The truck killings came four days before Title 42 was set to expire. Title 42 was a Covid-era policy that allowed for the expulsion of migrants.Days before the crash, the US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said that immigration authorities faced “extremely challenging” circumstances along the border with Mexico days as Title 42 is set to end. More