Migrants who have been waiting months in Mexico to enter the United States are begging with Texas Governor Greg Abbott to send them back to their home countries rather than deporting them to Mexico.
‘We have a message for Governor Abbott,’ said a group of four Honduran migrants living on the streets in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. ‘Return us to Honduras.’
‘Please don’t send us back to Mexico,’ the women in their mid-20s to mid-30s pleaded.
Several migrants indicated they are not tuned into U.S. policies, claiming that they were unaware of Title 42 and that they would be sent back to Mexico if they tried to cross into the U.S. and were denied release. Some are aware of the policies, but didn’t think conditions in Mexico would be so dire.
Others said that they planned to remain in Mexico until Title 42 was lifted, but decided once the policy was no longer ending Monday that they would make a break for it and cross into the U.S., claiming they had waited long enough.
Emanuel Perez, 30, from Guatemala told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that Mexican citizens and authorities are abusive toward foreign migrants.
The migrant, who is also waiting in Piedras Negras, said that police Mexicans steal migrants’ phones and money as they live on the streets and in migrant camps waiting for their chance to make a break for it and illegally flee over the border into the U.S.
He showed DailyMail.com the scars he has on his arms and side of his face from being robbed by Mexican citizens with a knife.
‘People aren’t welcoming in Mexico,’ Perez said. ‘They won’t give us water or anything. Police take our phones and money. Rules are strict.’
The Guatemalan asylum-seeker said that it took him four months to travel up to the U.S.-Mexico border from Guatemala, mostly on foot, and claims he has now spent that same amount of time waiting in Mexico.
During the last four months, Perez has crossed the Rio Grande River into the U.S. twice, and both times has been returned to Mexico.
When asked if he was waiting again to cross for Title 42 to end, Perez said he was unaware of that policy.
Under Title 42, Border Patrol can expel migrants back to Mexico without hearing their asylum claims in the midst of a public health emergency. The protocol is swift – sometimes only taking 15 minutes before returning them to Mexico – and doesn’t involve the lengthy process of granting or denying asylum or transporting migrants back to their countries of origin.
The group of migrants from Honduras in Piedras Negras said they want to stop being sent back to Mexico when they cross the border and would rather be returned to the country they migrated from if the U.S. won’t accept them.
They claim they spent all of their money and resources on getting to the border and are unable to return to their countries on their own.
Perez said he wants to get into the U.S. so he can work and send money back to his two kids and aging parents in Guatemala.
Across from Eagle Pass, Texas, migrants from various countries continue to build up along the border in Mexico – but many of their efforts have been futile so far and were put on major pause last week as Mexican and U.S. authorities exhibited a show of force surrounding the day Title 42 was meant to end.
Abbott toured the border and held a security briefing and press conference in Eagle Pass on Monday, May 23, which is the same day that Title 42 was previously set to expire before a federal judge in Louisiana put a stay on the effort by the Biden administration.
Arizona Republican Representative Andy Biggs told DailyMail.com at a Donald Trump rally in Casper, Wyoming on Saturday that migrants he spoke with were very aware of Title 42 and what it means for them.
‘So I was in Yuma in the first part of the week and Eagle Pass for a couple days the last part of the week,’ the Trump ally said. ‘So I didn’t find that they were ignorant about Title 42.’
He detailed that one Nicaraguan migrants knew ‘more than most members of Congress’ about Title 42, which he apparently learned from a news station in his home country.
‘I was really dumbfounded,’ Biggs said.
The Republican governor said during his press conference at City Hall on Monday that he will continue to send bus loads of migrants released from CBP custody to Washington, D.C. so the nation’s capital can experience the same challenges that border communities are facing.
So far, Abbott has already sent 45 buses of migrants to D.C.
Republicans argue Title 42 is the only failsafe left in place to deter migration and stop it from surging to triple the current 8,000 crossings per day.
Mexican authorities were patrolling the border across from Eagle Pass in Piedras Negras Monday and Tuesday and U.S. National Guard and Border Patrol pulled out all the stops as Abbott toured the border as influxes in migration were anticipated surrounding the potential end of Title 42.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which controls the public health measure aimed at the U.S. borders, announced last month that it was ending use of Title 42 after more than two years.
The rule was first implemented under then-President Donald Trump at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
Judge Robert Summerhays of the Western District of Louisiana ruled last Friday on a temporary stay for Biden’s end to Title 42 restrictions after a lawsuit was filed and signed on by two dozen Republican states.
The Trump appointee granted a preliminary injunction just three days before the expected end of the restriction in response to the lawsuit led by Arizona, Louisiana and Missouri.
The lawsuit argues the CDC is violating the Administrative Procedures Act because they did not provide a notice-and-comment period for the plan to lift Title 42. The law in question also bars moves that are deemed ‘arbitrary and capricious.’
The plaintiffs also claim the Biden administration failed to account for the added cost to the states – especially border states – of more migrants being allowed into the U.S.
A Border Patrol agent in Sunland Park, New Mexico on Wednesday told DailyMail.com at a point where Trump’s famed border wall comes to an end that before Title 42 was started it was a very popular crossing point for migrants.
The town, right on the border with El Paso, Texas, has a good stretch of border wall that ends abruptly. At that point there is a makeshift wooden shack where two Mexican authorities stand guard watching south for migrants attempting to cross into the U.S.
An owner at an apparel boutique in El Paso, Texas told DailyMail.com that the last few years have seen a massive spike in migration across the Mexico border as migrants flee the rising crime from cartels.
‘Well, wouldn’t you do the same?’ she questioned.
Since implementation in March 2020, Title 42 procedures have stopped 1.7 million illegal immigrants attempting to illegally cross the border. Humans Rights First found that of those expelled back to Mexico under the law, 10,200 of them – or 0.006 percent – have been kidnapped, raped, tortured or violently attacked.
April saw a 20-year high in migration with CBP encountering 234,088 people attempting to illegally cross the southern border from Mexico.
It was a jump from the record-setting high the month prior where 222,144 encounters are on record.
Internal estimates show that once Title 42 is dropped, migration can spike from 8,000 per day to 18,000 per day – other predictions show it tripling.