Global Courant 2023-05-10 03:54:39
STORY: Volunteers passed oranges and other items through the bars of a US border fence to migrants near San Diego.
Hundreds of people here have managed to cross one barrier at the US-Mexico border and then wait at a second, in a kind of no man’s land, while US Customs and Border Protection seem to struggle to process them.
Adrianna Jasso is one of the volunteers and an activist for migrants’ rights.
“There is a high level of uncertainty and some fear from the waiting migrants. We have met people who have been waiting here for four nights. At night it gets very cold.” It gets very cold in the morning. We have situations of mothers with babies from eight months to seven months. We have young boys who are ten years old, eight years old.”
Border agents brace for wave of migrants as a pandemic-era policy that allowed the rapid deportation of asylum seekers nears an end
Migrants have been evicted more than 2.7 million times under the rule, known as Title 42, a total that includes many repeated border crossings. And migrants continue to gather at various points along the border, despite repeated calls from President Joe Biden’s administration that the end of the policy will not result in an open border.
Volunteers say conditions at the crossings are getting worse.
“We probably had a number of about 120 to 125 people at the end of last week. And what we’re seeing now is it could be close to 400 or 500.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that Biden has spoken with the Mexican president about the situation and that the administration remains focused on handling it in a humane way.
“So what you can expect from us is that we’re going to do everything we can and use every available tool to help us, as we’ve been, address this issue in a humane and humane way. Our focus when it comes to managing the border is that we’re going to do it through enforcement, deterrence and diplomacy. And that’s what we have just a few tools available to the president. You know, and that’s because Congress hasn’t acted.”
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives plans to pass a package of border security measures that would tighten restrictions on immigrant asylum seekers, resume construction of a wall along the southwestern border with Mexico and expand federal law enforcement.
