Hundreds of migrants camp out in the cold on Mexico’s northern border over Christmas, hoping that restrictions imposed by the United States will be lifted quickly as they endure the bite of a winter storm that is devastating the region.
After the US Supreme Court ruled this week that the restrictions known as Title 42 could remain in effect temporarily, many migrants are facing a Christmas weekend that the Mexican weather service described as a “mass of arctic air.”
“I’m staying here. Where else can I go? “said Walmix Juin, a 32-year-old Haitian migrant, was getting ready for the weekend in a flimsy tent in the city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas. “I never thought I’d spend a Christmas like this.”
Temperatures in the border towns of Matamoros and Reynosa, where several thousand people camp outside or in emergency shelters, are expected to be around freezing point on Saturday and only slightly improve on Sunday.
Farther west in Ciudad Juarez, where hundreds of migrants line up at the border with El Paso, Texas, to apply for asylum, temperatures are expected to drop to minus six degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit). Many slept on the street.
“We turned ourselves in. We’ve reached out to immigration authorities,” Edwin Lopez from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, told the Associated Press.
He said he had been waiting for two months with his wife and three sons.
“Immigration drove us away. Because what they told us is that everything in Central America is blocked, that everything is closed. Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Hondurans — they don’t travel to the USA. We’re waiting for Title 42 to be annulled.”
In El Paso, Texas, record figures were either exceeded undetected or arrested and published in recent weeks. In response, the Texas National Guard was sent to the border this week.
The city’s accommodation is already overcrowded, leaving barely any time for festive celebrations and many migrants camped out on the streets in freezing temperatures.
25-year-old Daniel Morgan from El Paso showed up at a camp this week wearing a Santa hat and green sweater with bows and small stockings that he hoped would “put a smile on your face.”
“It’s a really complex issue that I’m not an expert on,” Morgan told AP as he handed out a batch of around 100 pieces of candy that he had baked. “Christ came to the world to give himself to us, and for me that is the whole reason why I came down: to give others what I have.”
Title 42 allows the US to return migrants to Mexico or certain countries without being able to apply for asylum. It should have ended on December 21 before the court ruling. With no clarity on when it will end, some officials worry that their cities could be overwhelmed if more migrants show up.