12/2/22
By Josh Rubin
This morning a few of us took the familiar walk across the international bridge to Matamoros, where once an encampment had grown along the banks of the river. It had undergone a growth spurt when the US adopted a policy known as Remain in Mexico, an attempt to discourage asylum seekers by exposing them to the raw danger of the border city that our State Department did then—and still does—classify as one of the most crime ridden places on the planet.
But in a strange way, the encampment thrived, with the help of humanitarian organizations and the eyes of some prominent personalities upon it. It was dangerous. It faced threats from nature, like a rising river, and from cartels, which preyed on largely defenseless people, far from their homes. But the community took on a character of its own.
The Remain in Mexico policy was disassembled with the election of Biden, and the camp was broken up. Some were allowed to cross while waiting for asylum, others who had their claims already denied seemingly scattered to the four winds. The encampment, which toward the end of its life had been fenced in, remains now, empty, the fence still standing, the greenery inside lush now that the trampling of the muddy ground ended.
But but but. Here is what we saw today. Maybe a couple of thousand people living on the streets, sitting, standing along the levee. The toilets that had been long fought for now gone. No tents, no tarps. They are not allowed. Mexico determined not to allow a tent town to arise, its policy does not allow any shelter. Deterrence in the extreme. Children chilled in the ever colder nights as winter comes in, people clustering close together just beyond the old settlement grounds. The banks of the river dotted with excrement, diarrhea evident, the medical help that once occupied a tent and trailer now gone.
Many from Venezuela were caught in the reversal of policy that suddenly allowed expulsion to Mexico where none was allowed because of the strain in relations between the US and that country. Now we can expel them to Mexico, where Mexico starts the clock, and when time runs out, they lose their place, even in the streets. Venezuelans make up the majority of these new homeless, but there are others. From Haiti. From southern Mexico’s poorest state, Chiapas. Peru. More.
And we stood on the embankment as many took turns telling their stories. The passages through the Darién Gap. The injuries, the infections. The children shivering themselves into respiratory distress. The lack of winter clothes. The long slow walk of bureaucratic confusion that means to convince people to leave. The anguished cries that there is no home to go to. Go home. I have no home.
The stories begun in outrage that end in tears making tracks down faces. Children rushing in to comfort their weeping mothers, clinging to legs.
Questions we cannot answer. Help we cannot provide. Horror. Are you lawyers? Are you journalists? Look at my paperwork…
A dog in a tshirt that belongs to no one, who knows how to shake hands. They show me. The road back to the bridge lined with humanity. We have no power, I explain in Spanish even poorer than usual.