From our correspondent
McAllen (Texas) Gone. On the American side of the Mexican border, migrants are rare appearances. A few dozen in state reception centers, such as in McAllen, the town that rose to global prominence in the summer of 2018, due to the story of children in cages, separated from their families. “Problem solved,” proclaims Donald Trump.
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Sister Norma Pimentel, 67, is a fundamental point of reference on the subject of immigration. And not just in Texas: the magazine Time has just placed her among the 100 most influential personalities in the world. He has been involved in assistance since 1978 and heads the Catholic Charities del Rio Grande. Until a year ago, the buses of Border Patrol they stopped in front of her organizations and delivered 300-400 people a day, sometimes up to a thousand. Today in one of these centers, the Humanitarian Respite, in the oldest part of McAllen, there are only 8-10 guests.
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We intercept Sister Pimentel on Sunday afternoon. He is at work in the offices of the Basilica of Our Lady of Lights in San Juan, not far from McAllen. He is about to go to Matamoros, on the other side of the border: «The migrants are now there. The Trump administration simply removed them from American soil, treated them like dust to be swept under the rug. How do you say? Out of sight out of mind. But close to the border the situation is tragic ».
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How many? “Until a few months ago there were 5,000 people camped in Matamoros alone in dramatic conditions. Now there are more or less 1,600. Many of them have tried to cross the Rio Grande, relying on traffickers, others perhaps have returned to their countries of origin ».
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Along the 3,145-kilometer line that separates Mexico and the United States several tent cities have sprung up. There is a very large one in Juarez, opposite El Paso, where there are an estimated 18,000 people; another in California, in Tijuana, at the height of the American San Diego: 27,000 migrants.
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These are figures that go back to Norma Pimentel: «It is reasonable to think that today at least 50,000 human beings are blocked, trapped, in precarious conditions, a few kilometers from the United States. They have no prospects. US offices and courts have suspended examination of asylum applications; the customs police have sealed the gates due to Covid-19 ».
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All of this is the result of a series of agreements reached in late 2018 between Trump and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador: the “Remain in Mexico” program, spiced with $ 4.8 billion, between public funding and American private investments. The idea, however, was to “relocate” the refugees waiting for an answer to their asylum request. Do not stack them at the border as parcels returned to the sender, leaving them largely at the mercy of Mexican organized crime. The gangs, the cartels of the narcos they have largely infiltrated the camps and offer clandestine access to the United States. The deadly combination of Trump and Covid squeeze has boosted business.
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The traffickers, for all the “coyotes”, demand $ 5,000 for the simple passage of the Rio Grande, from bank to bank, then the “passengers” have to make do. Or $ 10,000 for a more complete service, with transportation beyond the filters of the US police. It’s a turnover of tens of millions of dollars.
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The impressive thing is that all of this seems to interest no one, all archived. In the Republican fort-state, the electoral campaign is rampant. Over 7.3 million citizens have already voted. It is the record in the United States. And these are numbers never seen in Texas. Basically, 43% of registered voters expressed their opinion and even 80% of the total in 2016.
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Yet the key themes of 2016, “the invasion of criminals”, the Wall, are downgraded. Democrats have their heads elsewhere. They are trying to convince the Texans that Joe Biden has been misunderstood: he does not want to dismantle the oil industry. Maybe, but I’ll explain it in a territory that derives 9% of the gross domestic product only from the extraction and processing of gas and crude oil. Then there is the induced.
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In the last few days, there has actually been a brief return of attention to migrants. The lawyers of Aclu, the American Civil Liberties Union, have publicly denounced that the parents of 545 children, separated since July 1, 2017, are no longer found, as foreseen by the “zero tolerance” strategy imposed by Trump.
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Norma Pimentel is not surprised: “In those days the border officials acted in great haste, many times they didn’t even bother to register migrants. It is clear that now it is difficult to put families back together ». Throughout our meeting, the nun stressed that it is “wrong to politicize what is a humanitarian emergency”. In the end, however, he adds: “I don’t know if things could change with Biden. We’ll see. I remember that with Obama there were many deportations. It was the “Deporter in Chief“, no? We trust in God ». And also in the field work: Sister Pimentel greets and leaves for Matamoros.
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26 October 2020 (change October 26, 2020 | 22:52)
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