‘Security reasons’; Mexican migrant camps removed from the US border

On Sunday, the Mexico police destroyed a migrant camp that had been established on the Mexican side of the border with the US for security reasons, according to a local official. In the city of Ciudad Juarez, the camps had been established by about 600 migrants, primarily from Venezuela. Migrants have been held in Mexico for a few days now.

Santiago Gonzalez, the director of human rights for the government of Ciudad Juarez, claims that the most recent operation was designed to protect the migrants from fires, drownings, and hypothermia. Tensions arose between the officers and the migrants who were ejected from the tents as the riot police agents entered the camp erected alongside the Bravo River. During the operation, a few tents caught fire. To put out the flames, they were pushed into the nearby river.

The National Institute of Migration (INM) of Mexico reported last Monday that more than 16,000 migrants were detained there over the course of four days, including nearly 5,000 Venezuelans. The majority of the migrants came from Central and South American nations, including 4,968 Venezuelans, 2,987 Guatemalans, 1,385 Nicaraguans, 1,311 Hondurans, and 1,285 Ecuadorians. An evicted Venezuelan immigrant told Reuters that staying in the camp in front of the border wall would put pressure on US authorities to let them enter the country.

According to a pact reached last month between US officials and Mexican authorities, the former would send certain migrants from Venezuela who enter the US illegally back to Mexico. But earlier this month, a US judge declared illegal the Title 42 order from the epidemic era, which was used to send people to Mexico. Currently, Biden is in a precarious position in relation to border crossings.

Since then, tens of thousands of migrants have been discovered camped elsewhere in Mexico in subpar circumstances. Washington’s asylum policy have been in flux, resulting in an increase in the migrant population in border communities in Mexico and creating anarchy and uncertainty. In anticipation of entering the US, migrants have been camped out along the border. On November 8, the US reopened its land borders with Mexico and Canada.