Thousands of migrants wait in Juárez (NM Border Stories, Part 3 of 4)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | March 17, 2019 | Angela Kocherga /Roberto E. Rosales

[CedarDave]

CIUDAD JUÃREZ – They all know their number by heart and eagerly recite it when asked about where they are on the list of people waiting to make an asylum claim at an official port of entry.

“It’s 7971,” said Jessiel O’Farrill, 33, a Cuban migrant.

“They’ll call us on the day our number appears,” O’Farrill explained, referring to U.S. authorities. “They only take about 30 to 50 a day,” he said.

O’Farrill is waiting in a school gym converted into a makeshift shelter in central Juárez with his 2-year old daughter. His pregnant wife was hospitalized in Ciudad Juárez a few days ago with dangerously high blood pressure. After leaving Cuba, the family traveled by bus through a dozen countries and walked through a jungle for 10 days, at one point “drinking water from the river,” he said.

Now he’s eager to finish the last leg of their journey and present his family’s asylum claim at a port of entry.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at official border crossings are turning back migrants before they cross into the U.S. and telling asylum seekers to put their names on a waiting list. They then allow a certain number from the list in each day.

The “metering” system was put in place last year because CBP said it did not have the officers or facilities to handle the surge in families. The list is managed by Mexico’s immigration officials, and thousands – like O’Farrill – are now waiting in shelters or elsewhere in Juárez until their number is called.

At the same time, hundreds of migrants a day who do not want to wait in Mexico are crossing the border between ports of entry and turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents.

[CedarDave]

ABQ Journal Editor’s Note: The Journal continues its series on the influx of migrant families seeking asylum with a look at what is happening on the Mexico side of the border. The series concludes Monday with possible solutions.

8 hours on the border (Part 1 of 4 following the Border Patrol in El Paso)

‘They’re watching us watch them’ (NM border stories, Part 2 of 4)

[CedarDave]

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[backwoods-engineer]

This must stop. Or we will not have a country.

[bgill]

That’s horrible making them wait so long. 30-50 is too slow. Give me their papers and a “DEPORT IMMEDIATELY” rubber stamp and they’ll be cleared out by sundown.

[rktman]

Send them to the gov’s place. I’m sure it’s all unlocked waiting for visitors.

[dougherty]

America = flophouse to the world.

[notaliberal]

Waiting to get aboard the gravy train!

[Liz]

American taxpayers not only subsidize illegals who jumped our borders, but we also subsidize a sizeable
population of their relatives back in their homelands.....and the local pols there who get a cut of everything.

Central American Migrants Are Sending Billions Back To Their Home Countries
The Daily Caller ^ | 20 March 2019 | Jason Hopkins / FR Posted by zeestephen
Immigrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras sent back a record $120 billion in remittances this decade,
according to an immigration expert who spoke to the Washington Examiner using UN and Latin American banking statistics.

The numbers are expected to keep rising, with immigrants from these three nations having sent $17 billion in 2018 alone, and Central American bank data indicates that the trend will keeping going. (Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...

[Lean-Right]

A bill was introduced in the House in 2017
to tax remittances.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1813

I don’t know where it stands today.

[Jane Long]

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