Paso Canoas/Tapachula/El Paso (BLAZETRENDS) with the hope of reaching US territory without suffering immediate deportations, but full of uncertainty in the face of the new measures of the US government.
The end of Title 42, a rule that under the emergency of the pandemic allowed United States border authorities to immediately deport migrants alleging health reasons, has been replaced by Title 8, which also restricts access to asylum and many of them still do not know.
Between Panama and Costa Rica
Venezuelan Joan Collado wants to reach the United States, but “legally.” He has had enough of the extreme harshness of the Darien jungle, the natural border between Colombia and Panama.
“No, I don’t dare, I don’t dare (to cross the border between Mexico and the United States irregularly). No trail, none of that, we don’t want that anymore. What we want is to go legal”, explains to BLAZETRENDS Collado, a 39-year-old barber who has just entered from Panama to the Costa Rican side of the international town of Paso Canoas.
No one asked for documents. She got off a bus on the Panamanian side with another group of migrants, and on foot, without any type of control. A few meters later she arrived in Costa Rica, where a bus station was waiting for them to embark on their way to Nicaragua.
The ticket to the Nicaraguan border is 32 dollars, which is added to the 400 dollars that he has spent since he began the trip in his country. He has everything planned, he says, but the problem is that “what they tell you today changes tomorrow, every two hours it changes”, so even if you find out, “when you get there it’s something else.”
Collado started the trip alone and ended up joining a small group during the tour. They comment on the end this Thursday of what is known as Title 42 in the United States, but they are not clear about its consequences when implementing new immigration policies.
“Yes, we know (of the end of Title 42), but we do things legally, we get there and we do things as they say. Yes, may God allow us to enter legally, ”he assures.
“(In Mexico) we do the paperwork as such, we already have relatives there who, if Heaven allows, can receive us. If we have to work in Mexico, we will work in Mexico, but what we want is to get out of all that red that we are leaving behind ”in Venezuela, he says.
The fearsome jungle of the Darien
Collado, like the rest, has still recently passed through the Darien jungle, a nightmare. There he saw people drown in the river, others fainted due to lack of food or drinking water. There was “a Haitian who hanged himself because his wife miscarried on the way.”
In addition, “they robbed approximately 80 people (…) It was quite traumatic for them, because they arrived with nothing and now they have to beg all the way until they reach their goal. From the moment you enter the jungle you pay, you pay and you pay and you pay and what you do is walk, walk and walk”, says Collado.
After the Darien, the jungle has not yet ended, there is another. “Mexico, they say that it is a jungle, that right now it is the jungle,” she says.
At the height of Chiapas
In Chiapas, thousands of migrants from several dozen countries are moving towards Mexico City to try to reach the northern border this Thursday, before the end of “Title 42” and try to surrender to the United States authorities, despite the new restrictions that the country has imposed for irregular migration.
Yuris Pizarró, originally from Colombia, is traveling with seven children, her husband and some friends, and hopes to arrive before the end of the norm, unlike many, due to ignorance of what will happen next.
Surrounded by children who demand food, Pizarró explains that in order to make their journey they have had to sell in the streets, ask for money and walk hundreds of kilometers to reach Mexico and now begin to cross this country to reach the United States.
three borders
“All of us who are here migrating want to spend, there are enough people with all the needs in the world and we have endured on this path, that they help us with an extension so that all of us who come can enter, because we do not come for pleasure but to change our life and the future for the children”, sentence.
Another of the families is that of Krismar Márquez, a migrant from Venezuela, who just this Wednesday returned to obtain her immigration permit in Tapachula.
The woman, who pulls a car with a two-year-old girl, needs to travel another 1,000 kilometers to reach Mexico City, where her husband is waiting for her to start the trip together and determine what to do in the midst of this immigration crisis.
“I would ask him (Joe Biden), then, to consider us who are going through this situation and lengthen a little longer because the truth is this is not our fault, but the migration from here from Mexico, because of them. They return to us and we practically lose everything, because we are going for a better life for my daughter,” she says.
the last frontier
Entering the United States after having survived the Darién jungle, the corruption of the Guatemalan police, La Bestia -the freight train that many migrants take in southern Mexico- or the drug cartels, does not guarantee the success of the trip for those who seek a better life in “the land of opportunities”.
Many are detained and deported, some turn themselves in hoping to begin the asylum application process, and others decide to continue their lives as undocumented, condemned to a life of hiding, exploitation, and without rights.
“There is fear in those of us who remain here, we need an opportunity. I have thought, I have analyzed to see if I give myself up or not, but it will be up to me and see what happens with God’s blessing”, the Venezuelan Will Rodríguez told Efe, who with an ironic smile assures that the day he re-enters Title 8 is in force, turns 31 years old.
“Now, with Title 8, many deportations can be carried out and that is what we do not want,” he repeats.
El Paso, Texas
He is sitting on the sidewalk, in front of the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in El Paso (Texas, USA), where dozens of recently arrived migrants find a temporary refuge, since temples, schools, shelters and clinics are considered places where immigration agents cannot make raids.
He left Venezuela four months ago to seek a better future, “because in our country, unfortunately, the dictatorship does not let us move forward.” And he left behind his son and her daughter, whose names she has tattooed on her arms, where she also has a watch without hands engraved that reminds her of his dead brother.
“The hardest thing has been the jungle, it has been sad and unfortunate, I saw four dead and it is oppressive, it leaves one psychologically ill. Central America continues, which is a corruption that plagues us. Mexico also does not give us that help that suddenly makes it easier for us to work or try to get to the US, ”she summarizes.
If everything goes well, he concludes: “My plans are to work hard, I really like construction.”
But if not, he will be deported, like the 250 Guatemalans and Hondurans who were returned to their countries on two chartered planes this Wednesday by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who wants to send a clear message: with the Title 8 people who do not enter legally will continue to be expelled.