U.S. Border Patrol overwhelmed by large groups of migrant families

February 9, 2019  14H:26  GMT/ZULU

by Kathy DiNuzzo and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, El Paso, TX

U.S. Border Patrol said on Friday its resources were being stretched thin by larger and larger groups of Central American families left by smugglers in remote locations along the U.S. Mexico border.

So far in fiscal year 2019, which began last October, the Border Patrol has apprehended 60 groups of 100 or more migrants, compared with 13 during the entire 2018 fiscal year and just two large groups caught in the 2017 fiscal year, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official said on a call with reporters.

Until recently, most people caught crossing the border illegally were men from Mexico, but now Central American families and unaccompanied minors make up some 60 percent of those apprehended, data from the agency show.

Facilities built decades ago are struggling to cope with the influx of migrant families, many with young children, who are often in need of medical care.

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“Large bus loads of individuals are being bussed up to the border and we don’t have any infrastructure in that area,” the official said on the call with reporters.

Many of the migrants who may seek passage with smugglers in their journey through Mexico cross the border and turn themselves into U.S. authorities to seek asylum in the United States, a drawn-out court process that can take months or years to resolve.

The border patrol official said smugglers drop off large groups as a diversion tactic to tie up law enforcement resources in order to move drugs across other parts of the border.

The Trump administration has tried to curb access to asylum, including by starting a program that would require applicants to wait out their legal proceedings in Mexico.

Human rights advocates say increased border security and daily quotas put on asylum requests at ports of entry are among factors pushing large groups of migrants to cross the border in risky, remote areas.

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Just how dangerous these crossings can be was highlighted in December when a 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died in U.S. custody after she and her father crossed in a large group in a remote area of New Mexico. Weeks later, an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy died after crossing the border with his father near El Paso, Texas.

Overall, illegal crossings at the southern border have dropped dramatically compared to previous decades but in recent years the number of families and unaccompanied children heading to the United States has increased.

(For an interactive graphic titled 'Crisis on the Border?', see: here)

BREAKING: Central American migrants in Tijuana break into the US

December 4, 2018  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Renee Celeste and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, TIJUANA, Mexico

TIJUANA, Mexico - Central American migrants stuck on the threshold of the United States in Mexico breached the border fence on Monday, risking almost certain detention by U.S. authorities but hoping the illegal entry will allow them to apply for asylum.

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, climb a border fence to cross illegally from Mexico to the U.S, in Tijuana, Mexico, December 3, 2018. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

Since mid-October, thousands of Central Americans, mostly from Honduras, have traveled north through Mexico toward the United States in a caravan, some walking much of the long trek.

U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to stop the migrants entering, sending troops to reinforce the border and attempting a procedural change, so far denied by the courts, to require asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases are heard.

Frustrated and exhausted after weeks of uncertainty, many of the migrants have become desperate since getting stuck in squalid camps in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.

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So a number opted to eschew legal procedures and attempt an illegal entry from Tijuana as dusk fell on Monday at a spot about 1,500 feet (450 meters) away from the Pacific Ocean.

In less than an hour, Reuters reporters observed roughly two dozen people climb the approximately 10-foot (3-meter) fence made of thick sheets and pillars of metal. They chose a place in a large overgrown ditch where the fence is slightly lower.

Just before dusk, three thin people squeezed through the fence on the beach and were quickly picked up by the U.S. Border Patrol, witnesses said.

But along the border inland as darkness descended, more and more migrants followed, many bringing children.

Some used a blanket as a rope to help loved ones get over.

A mother and her children made it over the first fence and disappeared into the night.

The sight of them climbing the fence encouraged others, even as a helicopter patrolled overhead on the U.S. side.

Earlier, Karen Mayeni, a 29-year-old Honduran, sized up the fence while clinging to her three children, aged six, 11 and 12.

“We’re just observing, waiting to see what happens,” Mayeni said. “We’ll figure out what to do in a couple of days.”

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Ninety minutes later, she and her family were over the fence.

A number of the migrants ran to try to escape capture, but most of them walked slowly to where U.S. Border Patrol officials were waiting under floodlights to hand themselves in.

‘STAND ON MY HEAD’

Some of the migrants are likely to be economic refugees without a strong asylum claim, but others tell stories of receiving politically motivated death threats in a region troubled by decades of instability and violence.

Applying for asylum at a U.S. land border can take months, so if migrants enter illegally and present themselves to authorities, their cases could be heard quicker.

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U.S. officials have restricted applications through the Chaparral gate in Tijuana to between 40 and 100 per day.

Some may hope to defeat the odds and penetrate one of the most fortified sections of the southern U.S. border.

Those that made it across the fence in Tijuana still had to scramble up a hill and contend with a more forbidding wall to reach California, and U.S. Border Patrol agents had the territory between the two barriers heavily covered.

“Climb up. You can do it! Stand on my head!” one migrant said, egging his companion on.

One child and his mother got over the fence and ran up the hill behind. They turned around and waved to those still on the Mexican side.

U.S. border deaths rise on family, child migrants: patrol agency

June 26, 2018  06H:43  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Suzanne Gould and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Washington

The number of migrants dying from extreme heat on the U.S.-Mexico border rose 55 percent in the past nine months after an increase in unaccompanied children and families trying to enter the United States illegally, the U.S. government said on Monday.

FILE PHOTO: A memorial cross for people who have died crossing the border is seen at Casa del Migrante in Reynosa, Mexico April 1, 2013. REUTERS/Eric Thayer/File Photo

Heat-related deaths, the main cause of migrant fatalities on the U.S. southwest border, rose to 48, up from 31 over the same period in 2017, said U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora.

The death toll is expected to rise in the triple-digit heat of summer months as vulnerable, unacclimatized immigrants attempt to cross harsh environments, putting border fatalities on track for a year-on-year increase in 2018, Zamora said.

The Border Patrol recorded a 12 percent year-on-year rise in immigrant arrests in the eight months to May 31, Zamora said.

“We are geared up to surpass last year’s heat-related deaths and the summer is just beginning,” he said in a telephone interview. “The demographics of the illegal aliens we are apprehending, the family units, the unaccompanied children, they’re a lot more vulnerable.”

Humanitarian groups such as San Diego-based Border Angels say the main cause of rising deaths is tighter border security and law enforcement, such as the recent imposition of a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal border crossers. That has prompted migrants to make long treks through hostile terrain via remote crossing points.

“We’ve seen people crossing in more dangerous areas, so even though there’s less people crossing, there are more people dying,” said Enrique Morones, founder of the group whose volunteers leave water for migrants.

FILE PHOTO: A memorial is seen in the desert near Falfurrias, Texas April 2, 2013. REUTERS/Eric Thayer/File Photo

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Until four years ago, the vast majority of migrants arrested at the border were Mexicans. With improved economic conditions in Mexico, their number has fallen, as have overall arrests on the border, which dropped to 303,916 in 2017, down 26 percent from 2016, according to Border Patrol data.

Immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador now top the list of people arrested at the southern border as gun and gang-related violence drives an exodus from those countries, according to U.S. government data.

As the number of arrests on the border has fallen, the United Nations International Organization for Migration has recorded a rise in migrant deaths for the past four years, with the total reaching 415 in 2017.

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Immigrants, including children, from sub-tropical and mountainous areas are arriving at the border poorly nourished, unacclimatized to arid conditions and susceptible to heat exhaustion, Zamora said.

Families apprehended at the border increased five-fold since 2013, while the number of unaccompanied children detained in 2017 was almost double that in 2010, according to Border Patrol data.

James Cordero of Border Angels has seen a rise in the past few months in migrant families trekking through the California mountains he covers, based on articles like diapers, shoes and “Little Mermaid”