Constant app crashes "CBP One"which the United States authorized so that migrants manage your appointment for asylum, they cause despair among migrants on the northern border of Mexico, where they now often jump into the Rio Grande to urge a solution.
This is the case of the migrant community that lives in the camp set up in Matamoros, on the border with the US city of Brownsville, Texas.
Leaning on inflatables, ropes and plastic bottleschildren and adults cross the flow that, after increasing rains, carries a dangerous current.
“We have been here waiting for more than a year and nothing. The only option we have at this moment is to cross paths,” Honduran Maynor David told EFE.
The scenes are usual since the end of 2022, when also with a high flow, South Americans and Central Americans cross the river that divides Mexico from the United States, regardless of the fact that there are already US agents on the other side to intercept them.
POOR APPLICATION
The desperation of migrants has grown since the United States announced in January new measures to welcome 30,000 migrants from Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba through an application, but with the immediate deportation to Mexico of the rest who cross the border irregularly.
Just this week, hundreds of Venezuelans packed the Ciudad Juárez bridge and hundreds more migrants set up camp in Tijuana.both cities on the northern border of Mexico.
The situation has been complicated since last January, the Joe Biden government enabled the electronic tool "CBP One" to obtain an asylum appointment in the United States.
But migrants denounce that the latest update has presented failures that prevent the registration of applicants.
“That app doesn’t work, that app is a scam. It’s very complicated, the photo doesn’t grab you, one minute only gives you, it’s very horny (annoying), that quote is a fraud,” said Venezuelan Antonio Jesús Alvarado.
Despite the danger and the low temperature of the water, parents place babies and children on floating objects.
A woman eight months pregnant even climbed on an inflatable bed to cross the river.
“I go with God and he is the only one who strengthens us in this. We have been hungry, cold, everything”, said the Honduran Belem Janeth Orellana.
The crossings in the Rio Grande are one of the reasons why 2022 was the most tragic year for migrants in Mexico, since some 900 died in the attempt to cross without documents from the country to the United States, according to Mexican organizations.
CRISIS INCREASES
The Matamoros migration camp has been populated again by the arrival of applicants and those expelled from the US.
The president of the association Helping them Succeed, Gladis Cañas Aguilar, warned that the campo You already have around 2,000 people who require assistance for their basic needs, a situation that surpasses the activists.
He also indicated that there are an estimated 3,500 migrants stranded in the city who are eager to enter the United States legally or via the Rio Grande, including a growing number of migrants from Asia.
