Marcia Brown
On Saturday, the remaining asylum seekers in the Matamoros tent camp, across the U.S.-Mexico border, were told they must leave.
BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – Late Saturday afternoon, asylum seekers in a tent encampment near the U.S.-Mexico border were told they must leave the place where many had lived for months if not years. Roughly 60 people, including children and pregnant women, packed their things and boarded a bus, to relocate to a Matamoros church converted into a shelter.
These were the only remaining asylum seekers in a tent camp that has come to symbolize former President Trump’s cruel immigration policies and their effect on America’s neighbors. The camp consumed an entire park in Matamoros, and required increasing infrastructure to support the asylum seekers living there. The camp was Mexico’s problem, though U.S. policy created it.
Over the last week, the Biden administration has begun processing thousands of asylum seekers who were forced to remain in Mexico for their hearings under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). In phase one of the Biden administration drawdown, only those with open MPP cases are being processed, estimated to be around 26,000 asylum seekers. Another group of about 40,000, who have cases that are closed or who would like to appeal their cases, are not yet eligible to be processed and admitted into the U.S.
Pastor Abraham Barberi, who is converting his church in Matamoros to shelter the final group of asylum seekers from the encampment, said on Saturday he was calling his church members to help and said he had plenty of space. When asked how long he would be able to host the group before they can be admitted to the U.S., he said, “As long as it takes.”
Many of the thousands forced to wait in Mexico were staying in dangerous border towns like Matamoros, in open-air camps, vulnerable to cartels and others who prey on migrants.
As of Thursday, March 4, 992 asylum seekers with open cases had been admitted into the U.S., the vast majority through the Matamoros port of entry, as the administration prioritizes shutting down this particular encampment at the border. Of those, 611 were admitted in Matamoros, 277 in Tijuana, and 104 in Ciudad Juárez, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. With the exception of Matamoros, roughly 25 asylum seekers per day are being admitted at each port of entry in a process that includes COVID-19 testing.
According to a DHS spokesperson, as of Sunday the U.S. had processed more than 700 asylum seekers with open MPP cases at the Brownsville port of entry. The spokesperson did not give a timeline for processing people with more complicated cases, stating only that “the border remains closed.”
First lady Jill Biden visited the Matamoros encampment on the campaign trail last fall, saying that the conditions were inhumane. “It’s not who we are as Americans,” she said at the time. “We are a welcoming nation, but that’s not the message that we’re sending at the border. We’re saying, ‘Stop. Don’t come in.’”
For those admitted, the joy is tempered by sadness about those left behind. One couple, both doctors from Cuba seeking asylum, spoke to the Prospect through a translator. Sitting in the downtown Brownsville bus station on Friday, Elizabeth Despaigne Caballero said she and her husband, Dairon Elisondo Rojas, were headed to Houston, where her father lives. She said she had not seen her daughter, who is now eight, in three years. She hopes to bring her daughter to Houston, now that she has been admitted.
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Despaigne Caballero and her husband worked with Global Response Management, an NGO that provides acute care, to help provide medical care at the camp. Elisondo Rojas was recently named to Time magazine’s 100 Next list. He said that he wants to emphasize that there are asylum seekers in the camp who “deserve to come to the U.S.”
Courtesy of Elizabeth Despaigne Caballero
Elizabeth Despaigne Caballero and her husband, Dairon Elisondo Rojas, both worked to provide medical care at the Matamoros camp.
As the camp emptied, the Mexican government took steps to push the remaining asylum seekers out. Officials removed the bathrooms and appeared to cut off running water. Since last summer, media has not been allowed entry. Starting last Thursday, officials began blocking entry to advocates and medical staff, too. NGOs scrambled to reclaim equipment they were using in the camp before they were denied entry entirely.
With the help of a translator, the Prospect spoke to asylum seekers who remained in the camp on Saturday, through a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Entrance to the camp is strictly monitored to prevent new arrivals from entering.
“We have been here through hurricanes, mice, strong winds, COVID-19, kidnapping, rape,” said Dison, an asylum seeker from Honduras on Saturday. “We’re still here.” He added that he feels left behind, and worries the remaining group will be forgotten after hundreds were admitted into the U.S. over the last week.
AT ONE POINT IN TIME, the Matamoros encampment was home to more than 5,000 asylum seekers. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the Trump administration shut down the U.S. border completely, that number shrank precipitously. By the time the Biden administration began processing asylum seekers in the MPP program, around 700 people remained in the camp.
At its peak population, the camp operated like a small city. There were small kitchens, showers, and basins with running water to wash clothes. Solidarity Engineering, a nonprofit started to serve the camp’s needs, built a soccer pitch and a playground, and provided crucial barriers to prevent flooding. The city had designed the park where the encampment was on a floodplain, so the group used sandbags to divert water, built pallets underneath tents, and dug drainage channels and berms to divert and prevent standing water, explained Christa Cook, one of Solidarity’s founders.
Though the camp is shutting down, more migrants are arriving in Matamoros. The same day the remaining asylum seekers went to a shelter, a group of around 40 migrants arrived at the camp’s gates. Unable to gain entry, the group’s leaders determined that they would sleep outside on the sidewalk adjacent to the camp, rather than go to a temporary shelter. They hoped their presence would make a statement, enabling them to cross sooner, despite the danger of being in the open.
Bertha Bermudéz contributed reporting and translation.
