Dozens of migrants set up an encampment in view of South El Paso overnight as the number of Venezuelans expelled by the U.S. to this Mexican border city swelled.
For days since the expulsions began Oct. 12, Venezuelans have been sleeping in the elements near the Mexican side of the Paso Del Norte Bridge. On Tuesday, Chihuahua state authorities asked the migrants to move away from a migrant aid center and the railroad tracks, and a large group pitched tents nearby on the south bank of the Rio Grande.
The accord between the Biden administration and the government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador included 65,000 U.S. visas for Mexican, Central American and Haitian workers and 24,000 slots for Venezuelans seeking asylum in exchange for Mexico agreeing to take expelled Venezuelans at its northern border.
Roughly 1,800 Venezuelan nationals have been expelled to Juárez in the past two weeks, according to Enrique Valenzuela, director of Chihuahua’s migrant aid center in the city, the Centro de Atención Integral al Migrante. Many other Venezuelan migrants who were en route before policies changed are arriving in Juárez daily.
Several migrants in the encampment said they arrived recently in Juárez, hadn’t yet crossed the U.S. border, and were waiting for word of a change in policy.
“We’re waiting for an answer,” said Gilfred Jimenez, 21. “We’re all waiting for an opportunity to cross. I have family, and they crossed and turned themselves in and were returned to Mexico over the bridge.”
Mexico sent its secretary for North American affairs, Arturo Rocha, to El Paso and Juárez on Tuesday to review the “implementation of the new humanitarian plan for Venezuelan people in Mexico,”…
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