Mexico moving migrants away from borders to relieve pressure

Associated Press, 05/20/2023

Mexico is flying migrants south away from the U.S. border and busing new arrivals away from its boundary with Guatemala to relieve pressure on its border cities.

In the week since Washington dropped pandemic-era restrictions on seeking asylum at its border, U.S. authorities report a dramatic drop in illegal crossing attempts. In Mexico, officials are generally trying to keep migrants south away from that border, a strategy that could reduce crossing temporarily, but experts say is not sustainable.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported Friday that in the week since the policy change, Border Patrol averaged 4,000 encounters a day with people crossing between ports of entry. That was down dramatically from the more than 10,000 daily average immediately before.

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Deadly suspected fungal infections in Texas residents linked to surgeries in Matamoros, Mexico

CNN, May 17, 2023

Five Texas residents became ill with suspected cases of fungal meningitis after traveling to Matamoros, Mexico, for surgery, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. One person died and four others are hospitalized.

In a travel advisory, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged patients to cancel certain procedures in Matamoros, Mexico. Health officials are investigating whether the cases are linked and whether there are more infections.

The procedures all involved an epidural – an anesthetic injected into the area around the spinal column. The patients ranged in age from their 30s to their 50s, and symptoms began three days to six weeks after their procedures.

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Mexico shuts some migrant detention centers after Juárez fire, announces new ‘shelter’

El Paso Times, 05/17/2023

This country’s top immigration official said Mexico is closing migrant detention centers in the wake of a deadly fire and plans to open humanitarian shelters instead.

Francisco Garduño faces criminal charges in Mexico that he failed to protect migrants in his custody after a March 27 fire killed 40 migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela and other countries. The National Immigration Institute commissioner has remained in his post as he awaits trial.

On Tuesday, Garduño gave reporters a tour of empty offices on the Mexican side of the Ysleta-Zaragoza international bridge that would soon be turned into analbergue provisional, “a temporary shelter,” he said, “to replace the one where the accident occurred.”

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US returns 2,400 people to Mexico since end of Title 42: Official

Al Jazeera, 05/15/2023

The United States has sent approximately 2,400 people – including Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans – back to Mexico since a contentious border policy known as Title 42 expired late last week, a US official has said.

The end of Title 42, which allowed US authorities to rapidly expel people crossing the country’s southern border under the pretext of protecting public health, late on Thursday coincided with a new policy that restricts access to asylum at the frontier.

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Title 42 dramatically changed who arrived at the border

Reuters, 05/16/2023

In March 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Republican administration of then-President Donald Trump implemented sweeping restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border through an order known as Title 42. At the time, health officials said the order, which allowed border agents to quickly expel migrants to Mexico, was needed to stem the spread of the virus in crowded border detention facilities. But some medical experts and immigration advocates saw the Title 42 restrictions not as a public health necessity, but as an extension of Trump’s policy goals to stem both legal and illegal immigration.

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Mexico says Texas truck inspections at border causing freight shipment delays, millions in losses

Fox Business, 05/16/2023

Mexican government officials said Monday that renewed inspections of trucks at the Brownsville-Matamoros crossings in Texas are causing delays of between eight and 27 hours for freight shipments across the border. 

“These inspections are causing delays of between 8 and 27 hours in the entry of national cargo transports to Texas, which mainly affects perishable products. Ultimately, American consumers are paying the costs of these policies, so it’s in everyone’s interest to restore normalcy at the border,” the government said in a statement.

It urged Texas to stop the inspections, which began on May 8, noting that an objective of the measures to interrupt migrant smuggling at the border “does not correspond to subnational governments.” 

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Se rehabilitarán aduanas en la frontera norte con 10 mil mdp

La Jornada, 15/05/2023

El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador anunció que se rehabilitan 15 instalaciones aduaneras en la frontera norte del país con una inversión de 10 mil millones de pesos.

Al continuar su gira del fin de semana por Tamaulipas, supervisó la construcción de un inmueble de la Dirección General de Aduanas en Nuevo Laredo y precisó que también se adquirieron nuevos equipos de rayos X y se edifica un cuartel.

Acompañado por el gobernador Américo Villarreal y el secretario de la Defensa Nacional, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, por medio de sus redes sociales el Presidente explicó que con esta inversión se pretende hacer más seguro y eficiente el tránsito en unos 500 kilómetros de la frontera.

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What is Title 42, why is it ending and what’s happening now at the border?

CNN, 05/12/2023

The end of a controversial border policy is looming.

Title 42, the Trump-era pandemic public health restrictions that became a key tool officials used to turn back migrants at the US-Mexico border, is set to expire on May 11.

Here are answers to some key questions about Title 42, what’s happening on the ground and what could happen next.

What is Title 42? In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a public health order that officials said aimed to stop the spread of Covid-19. The order allowed authorities to swiftly expel migrants at US land borders. The policy is widely known as Title 42, for the portion of US code that allowed the CDC director to issue it.

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Readout of President Joe Biden’s call with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico

The White House, 05/09/2023

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke today with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico. The two leaders discussed their ongoing efforts to strengthen the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship, including the importance of enhancing cooperation between the United States and Mexico to manage unprecedented migration in the region. Toward that end, they discussed continued close coordination between border authorities and strong enforcement measures, in preparation for the return to full reliance on Title 8 immigration authorities at the U.S.-Mexico border, which carry steeper consequences for those removed than expulsion under Title 42. 

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Biden restricting asylum access at Mexico border as Title 42 ends

Reuters, 05/10/2023

The U.S. rolled out a new regulation on Wednesday that will deny asylum to most migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, a key part of President Joe Biden’s enforcement plan as COVID-19 border restrictions known as Title 42 end this week.

The regulation creates a new presumption that migrants arriving at the border are ineligible for asylum if they passed through other nations without seeking protection elsewhere first or if they failed to use legal pathways for U.S. entry.

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