Migrants and authorities face off in northern Mexico over eviction

Migrants and authorities of the three levels of government clashed this Sunday in the north of Mexico since the undocumented immigrants were living in tents along the Rio Grande -in the northern state of Tijuana-, on the border with the United States, and they were evicted against their will.

From an early hour, 500 refugees who lived at this point, were notified by municipal authorities that they should evacuate the place and that they would be taken to a shelter where they would not suffer from inclement weather and where they would be provided with their basic needs.

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With a horn, Luis Dirvin García, from the Coordination of the Comprehensive Care Center for Migrants, told the migrants: “We know that being on the riverbank implies a risk and we have significant temperature drops these days, we are going to reinstall in reception spaces. They must know that in these shelters they have health services, work”.

A large operation of municipal and state police, the National Guard, Firefighters and the Mexican Red Cross, surrounded the place, on alert and to demand that they leave the place.

However, the migrants, mostly of Venezuelan origin, did not agree with the provision, in some cases there were struggles between them with the anti-riot groups that evicted them. As a sign of their disagreement, they burned some tents, but the conflict did not escalate.

Firefighters extinguish burning tents as police remove Venezuelan migrants from a camp on the banks of the Rio Grande, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. (REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/)

Some of the undocumented say they are afraid to go to a government shelter because they see the possibility of being deported to Venezuela.

“We were in the tent and a man came to tell us to get out, the garbage truck arrived and began to remove the tents. It is something inhuman that they want to take us out, we are not enemies of the United States or of Mexico, we are here for a fight, not for pleasure,” Miguel Moya, one of the Venezuelan migrants, told EFE.

He added that it is illegal for them to be evicted by force and he does not consider the way in which the Mexican government treated them for the eviction to be appropriate.

“It is inhumane, this is not done, nobody knows what we have gone through to get here, it is inhumane,” Luz Ángela, a Venezuelan refugee, said between tears and a broken voice.

Police remove Venezuelan migrants from a camp on the banks of the Rio Grande, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. (REUTERS/Jose Luis González/)

“We responded to an opinion issued by the municipal and state Civil Protection Directorate that established that, due to health conditions, the possibility of fire and even drowning due to the presence of the Río Bravo, it was necessary to invite them to go to the different shelters, added to the low of temperatures in the city”, according to the Secretary of the City Council, Hector Rafael Ortiz.

The region is experiencing a record migratory flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office detained an unprecedented number of more than 2.76 million undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 2022, a figure that includes substantial increases in the captures of Cubans and Venezuelans.

Source: Elcomercio