Between a wall and a hard place: what now for Hondurans in Tijuana?
The Mexico-U.S. border wall at Tijuana, Mexico. Photo © Tomas Castelazo / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA
The border crossing in this direction is a busy
place. A long line of cars and buses takes hours to get to the front of the
line on a good day and, due to the interminable inching forward, vehicles tend
to keep their motors running, making the air full of exhaust fumes.
A steel
post announces “United States”, with “Welcome” engraved into its base in
English, Japanese, Thai, German and other languages. Tens of millions of people cross this border annually, from
Tijuana, Mexico into San Diego, United States.
Almost 3,000 Hondurans who walked and hitched
rides en masse from their homeland through Guatemala and Mexico are now stuck
on the Mexican side of the U.S. border in the city of Tijuana, waiting, hoping
to have their refugee claims processed and be admitted into the United States.
Almost 3,000 Hondurans are now stuck on the Mexican side of the U.S. border in the city of Tijuana, waiting, hoping to have their refugee claims processed and be admitted into the United States.
Some have family or friends across the way, others just knew they had to leave.
The Central American group, known as the Caravan, started their 4,400 km (2,734
mile) march in San Pedro Sula on October 12, and it is made up of one third
minors, with a great number of women with babies and small children, unaccompanied
children and teens, LGBTQI youth and adults, and even senior citizens and
handicapped individuals. Fleeing the world’s most murderous region, they have
sought safety in numbers on their journey north.
In Tijuana, a coastal city of 1.3 million hard up
against the border’s freshly installed coils of razor wire and steel pylons
that stretch into the sea on its beach to the west, and far into
the desert to the east, the caravan is a moderately-sized group, and even if a
sister caravan of 2,000 meets up, they would not number more than those gather
for a sporting event or pop concert.
By contrast, the U.S. Customs & Border
Protection (CBP) arrests or detains over 500,000 persons yearly, accusing them of “illegal
entry”.
But since the very moment of its spontaneous
inception at a bus station in San Pedro Sula, where mothers nursed babies on the curb after the station
was locked down for the night, this group captured the attention and became the
obsession of the (arguably) elected leader of the world’s (arguably) wealthiest
and most powerful nation.
First, President Trump attempted to stir fear and
hatred of an immigrant “invasion” in advance of the country’s mid-term
elections, consecrating millions of dollars and thousands of soldiers to
“secure the border” on the U.S. side.
But his efforts to win votes for his
right-wing Republican Party and keep control of the government’s legislative
branch failed as the Democrats won back a majority in the House of
Representatives, with voters electing an unprecedented number of women to
public office across the nation.
Perhaps sensing a new tide since the
elections, Trump has barely mentioned the caravan in his voluminous morning
statements on Twitter, his preferred mode of communication.
The Trump administration also failed, at least
for now, in its attempt to rewrite the laws governing the admittance and
treatment of refugee claims.
On November 9, the White House issued a proclamation that anyone arriving between official U.S.
border crossings would be prohibited from applying for asylum, even though it
is impossible for the numerous caravaners to assemble at official posts and
sustain the months’ long backlog to have their petitions seen and heard.
A federal judge ruled that the ban was
outside the scope of the president’s authority and set forth a temporary
restraining order.
Strangely, the 5,600 extra troops Trump
dispatched to the border never went to Tijuana, where the slow moving caravan
was obviously making its way.
Instead, the heavily-armoured forces have been
stationed in McAllen, Texas, spending their time unrolling and installing razor
wire along the border there, 2,449 km (1,521 miles) away. The president requested
an additional $59 million for border control on Monday November 19.
Unfortunately for immigrants and asylum seekers,
the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Service (USCIS) empowered its agents on
Monday with broader discretion to deny visas to and speed up the deportation of
crime and domestic violence victims (who would normally qualify for T- and
U-visas respectively), human trafficking victims, widows/widowers, spouses and
minor children of refugees, and other special groups. A large number of caravan
members could fall into one of these categories.
Tijuana’s right-wing mayor, Juan Manuel Gastélum,
has colourfully declared himself against the caravan, calling it a “tsunami”
of “vagos y marihuanos” (tramps and
marijuana-smokers), thereby earning him the respect of Donald Trump as the pair
retweeted and misquoted each other over the weekend.
Gastélum also inspired a small but vocal protest against the Hondurans that has
gained much traction in the media.
Pueblo Sin Fronteras, the group who has been organizing earlier caravans out of Central America, shared a post by Nicole Ramos announcing five LGBTQ marriages among caravan participants in Tijuana, performed by ministers from the Unitarian Universalist Church.
But otherwise, empathy appears to be strong.
Tijuana has long been a place filled with many charitable organizations in
support of migrants and deportees, such as Border Angels and the catholic Casas del Migrante network. But
poverty is ever-present and there is only so much they can do to help.
Pueblo Sin Fronteras, the group who has been organizing earlier
caravans out of Central America, shared a post by Nicole Ramos announcing five LGBTQ marriages among caravan participants in Tijuana, performed
by ministers from the Unitarian Universalist Church.
“Today the world saw that love cannot be stopped– not by
governments, not by homophobia or transphobia, not by organized crime, and
certainly not by any wall or borderline,” Ramos wrote.
Right now, caravan members are subsisting on
beans and Cheezits, sleeping rough on the beach, in donated tents and lean-to’s of their own creation.
Who could have imagined
that a group of poor people with little more than plastic thongs on their feet
and 200 lempiras (8 dollars) in their pockets could have accomplished such a
triumph?
They have brought international recognition to the plight of their
country and their people, organized themselves and are now at the doors of
their goal. Upon their arrival in Tijuana, some young caravan members shimmied
up the border fence and cried, “¡Sí se pudo! (Yes, we could!)”