The sun set on Thursday over an all-too-famous portrait of desperation in the Rio Grande Valley. Some women carried complaining babies while others dragged bags of belongings to the edge of the muddy river, where a group of men waited for them with life jackets to take turns moving from Mexico to the United States. Just that day, according to authorities, 2,000 migrants were apprehended in the valley.
“We’re coming for a new opportunity,” said one man who traveled with his wife and young daughter.
U.S. officials attributed this increase in part to instability in the region, exacerbated by the pandemic, and the perception among migrants of more welcome immigration policies under a new president.
“We want to make a living here”
Roxana Rivera, 28, said she and her 6-year-old daughter left Honduras after hurricanes from November until now destroyed her home and everything in it.
The home, Rivera said, was that the U.S. could now allow people with children to cross the border freely – which was not entirely true. She heard it on the news, she said. Family members in the US passed on the same information. Other migrants had similar stories.
Rivera said she was excited when the group she crosses the border with – mostly mothers and their children – was picked up by border agents. The migrants were processed and then taken to a bus station in Brownsville, Texas, where they were tested for Covid-19 and offered supplies by non-profit organizations before their release. She planned to stay with family members in Houston while her immigration case was processed.
“You always dream of living in a house with your kids,” Rivera said emotionally. “Now we have nothing … We dream of having a house.”
Rivera said she sometimes regrets embarking on the long journey by foot and by train north, endangering her daughter’s life. Sometimes the girl asked for food, and she had no one to offer her. Once, she said, her daughter became dehydrated. Another time she had to seek medical attention in Mexico when her daughter had a fever.
Maria Mendoza, a 30-year-old migrant from El Salvador, looked exhausted when she arrived in Brownsville after being processed by immigration officials. She was hoping to reunite with family members living in Maryland, she said through tears.
Mendoza recalled that the raft she and others used during a midnight crossing of the Rio Grande capsized, sending several mothers and their children into the water. She said there were days she did not eat so that her 6-year-old daughter would not go hungry. Her daughter remembered that she had dodged a snake along the way.
“More than anything, I want to be reunited with my family,” she said. “We want to make a living here. A better future for our children.”
“We have no place to put people”
According to a Homeland Security official, border agents find 4,000 to 5,000 people daily.
“We are overcrowded,” said Chris Cabrera, a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Board, which represents the border patrol agents. “We are overcrowded. We have no place to place people.”
He added: “We have it under our supervision and the system has crashed and there is no place for us to send it.”
Unaccompanied migrant children are another part of the administration’s problem.
On Wednesday, CNN learned that the number of unaccompanied children in border guards has reached more than 3,700. Many are detained in the jail-like facilities along the border.
The border patrol on Wednesday arrested nearly 800 unaccompanied migrant children – according to a Homeland Security official, the current 450 daily average.
About 8,800 unaccompanied children are under the supervision of U.S. health and human services, the department confirmed Thursday, compared to about 7,700 the previous week.
“The border is not open”
Roberta Jacobson, Biden’s coordinator for the southern border, said the government’s message to migrants now is not the time to come.
“It’s really important that people do not undertake the dangerous journey in the first place, and that they offer alternatives to the journey, because it is not safe on the road,” she said on Wednesday.
“And so, you know, if I can only emphasize … that it’s really important that the message comes out, because the perception is not the same as the reality in terms of the border that is not open.”
Jacobson reiterated the administration’s message: “The border is not open.” She said the Trump administration’s immigration policy is deliberately exacerbating this.
“We can not just undo four years of the previous government’s actions overnight,” Jacobson said, adding that it would take a long time to overcome the “consequences of Trump’s immigration policy.”
The handling of the situation by the new government nevertheless drew criticism from Republicans and some Democrats.
Aside from unaccompanied children awaiting immigration cases, the Biden government has still turned down most migrants. Some families are admitted to the U.S. on a case-by-case basis. A change in Mexican law banning the detention of young children has prevented U.S. immigration agencies from turning migrant families away.
Sandra, 38, said in Brownsville that she had fled Honduras after years of threats from a family member. Her full name is not published because she is a victim of domestic violence. One day, the family member arrived at her home with a gun and opened fire. One of her sons and other family members tackled the man and prevented him from killing her.
She lived with her son in a tent city on the Mexican side of the border last year – where she taught kindergarten – and is now awaiting asylum in the United States.
For now, a woman who runs a charity in Brownsville has opened her home to Sandra and her young son. She learned this week that she has an immigration hearing in June. Sandra wiped away the tears, and will never return to Honduras.
“I had to leave forever,” she said. “I can not live in my country.”
CNN’s Ray Sanchez, Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands contributed to this story and Sanchez wrote in New York.