Dreams of safety, health care, jobs: Why thousands of migrants are waiting in Mexico -- and thousands more arrive each week

 

See how migrants use Trump-era pandemic rule to cross into US legally 04:45

Reynosa, Mexico Pastor Hector Silva gets emotional as he describes how he had to recently turn away mothers, with infants in their arms, from the gates of his migrant shelter. 

"It's very difficult," Silva said with a broken voice. "To stand at the gate and see a mom with a child and say, 'I'm sorry. I cannot help you.'"  

Silva has had to do just that countless times in recent months as thousands of migrants continue to arrive daily to the northern Mexico border city of Reynosa.

Most of the new arrivals are Haitian. Silva estimates that about 12,800 migrants are waiting in Reynosa. At his two "Senda de Vida" shelters, Silva has enough food and tents for nearly 6,000.

Life inside the shelters is about sharing. Thousands share bathrooms, showers, clothes washing stations, clothes lines and cellphone charging stations. Outside the woman's bathroom, the rules for using the facility are posted in two languages, including reminders to keep the area clean.

Life outside the shelters' gates is about surviving. Migrants have set up makeshift camps -- one is just yards from the banks of the Rio Grande. About 350 people live there, according to Alma Ruth, founder and director of the Practice Mercy Foundation.

Unlike the shelter tents, which are on either concrete or gravel, some of these tents are on the dirt or wood pallets. Migrants there have made makeshift outdoor stoves by placing metal grills over cinderblocks on the bare dirt.

"Many of them have severe health issues and the pregnant women were denied service by the local Mexican hospital," Ruth said.

A 'radical shift' at the border is making things tougher for Biden

Earlier this year, the number of migrants waiting in border communities in northern Mexico, including Reynosa, swelled in anticipation of the end of Title 42, the Trump-era public health order that has been used nearly 2.2 million times to expel migrants out of the US to Mexico and other countries.

In April, more than 7,000 migrants, mostly from Central America and Haiti were waiting in Reynosa for Title 42 to lift.

The result in border cities was staggering to see. Shelters were packed with desperate people. A public plaza at the foot of the international bridge had turned into a tent city, with some migrants sleeping under tarps and not knowing where their next meal would come from. The conditions themselves made migrants -- many whom were fleeing violence and extortion in their home countries -- easy prey for criminal organizations.

Pamela Rosales, the project coordinator of Doctors Without Borders in the region, called the migrant situation a "humanitarian crisis" due to the overwhelming number of people arriving and the limited resources they have available to them.

"Reynosa is the last stage for people that are coming all the way from different parts of [Mexico and the world] fleeing violence, fleeing poverty, corruption," Rosales said.

Part of the challenge is the increasingly diverse background of arriving migrants. "We saw a big change in non-Spanish speakers, so even though we do have the resources, we do have a language barrier," Rosales said.

Some of the most common medical issues her team of 65 personnel -- including physicians, social workers, outreach and logistics personnel -- are treating include acute upper respiratory, digestive and mental health issues, as well as skin diseases in children that spread quickly in crowded conditions without consistent hygiene practices, like handwashing.

For now, there is no scheduled end for Title 42: A federal judge ordered the Biden administration to keep the controversial order in place in late May.

And the desperation of the people living in Reynosa -- at Senda de Vida, on the streets and in makeshift camps -- has no clear ending either.

The promise of help and safety

Inside one tent at Senda de Vida, a Haitian couple, Francillon Makenson and Pierre Marie Rose, and their toddler, who shares his father's name, said they heard about Reynosa through word of mouth during their journey. 

Rows of tents set up at the Senda de Vida shelter on August 30, 2022.

For five years, the couple lived in São Paulo, Brazil, where their son, now two and a half years old, was born. For months, they traveled north through South and Central America on foot and by bus.

"We made many friends along the way that stayed in touch with us and one came through here," Makenson said, speaking Portuguese. "He said in Reynosa there were many organizations that would help us, and also that there were attorneys."

The Makensons have been at Senda de Vida for one month.