Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro
Mayorkas is headed to the Rio
Grande Valley in Texas today.
Thousands of migrants crossed into the US
near Eagle Pass in the past few days,
and the city's
mayor says they feel abandoned
and are pleading for help now.
Texas
governor Republican
Greg Abbott says that he is
sending additional busses
to Eagle Pass in El Paso
to assist border communities.
CNN's Rafael Romo is with us now
this morning to discuss.
And really,
Rafael,
this goes beyond the US-Mexico border.
Yeah, that's right, Victor.
This is more of a regional problem
and the problem goes
beyond the migrants
who have already made it to the US
southern border.
There may also be tens of thousands
of others on their way north.
We reached out to the government
of Panama, a Central American country
that serves as a transit point
for many immigrants
coming from South America.
And other parts of the world.
They told us that
during the month of August.
Listen to this, Victor.
Nearly 82,000 migrants
cross through their territory.
And so far this month,
more than 55,000 had done the same.
This massive
number of immigrants is causing problems
not only across the US southern border,
as we have previously reported,
but also in Central America and Mexico.
Take a look at how these migrants
are traveling through Mexico
on cargo trains using bed sheets as tends
to protect themselves from the sun
during the long trip north.
One of those migrants told CNN
that as risky as it can be,
they prefer traveling on the cargo train
because taking the bus can be
way more expensive
look than they might.
They take too much money from us
and we go by bus drivers
get 500 pesos per person.
And that's why we arrived in Mexico City
without any money,
because they get greedy, right?
If they stay, it makes me sad.
And if they leave, I get sad, too,
because I know that
if they stay, their dream is cut short.
And if they leave,
it is also sad
because we will never see them again.
I mean, they are our brothers and sisters
traveling on the cargo
trains may be cheaper,
but the trip north
can also be deadly on Tuesday.
Federal makes Mexico's largest
railroad operator
suspended service
of several northbound train lines
after reporting
half a dozen injuries
and deaths of migrants.
And just put this new migrant crisis
in perspective.
Nearly a quarter of a million
migrants crossed through Panama in 2022,
according to Panamanian officials.
More than 389,000 have done the same.
So far this year.
And we also have an update, Victor,
on the situation
at the Border
Customs and Border Protection
Office of Field Operations
just announced
that it has resumed operations
at the International
Railway Crossing Bridge in Eagle
Pass, Texas.
So that's a new development
that had been closed for a while
that they are reopening now. All right.
These numbers are massive.
Rafael Romo, thank you, Omar.
Also talk about all
of this with Andrew Selee.
He's president of the Migration
Policy Institute
who joins me now to discuss.
So, Andrew, we
I mean,
we saw some of the numbers,
just the differences
and the number of migrants
encountered this year
so far versus last year.
And when you look at the data
from the Panamanian government,
it shows the number of migrants
making the crossing through
the Darien Gap is on on the rise.
Why are we seeing that sudden increase
You know, we were,
you know, three years ago
we were talking about this
and during the Trump administration, it's
primarily a Central American issue.
But the number of Central Americans
is has gone down
a bit, is somewhat stable.
But what we're seeing
is this huge number coming to the dairy.
And a lot of these are Venezuelans,
the largest displaced group
there, about 7 million, seven
and a half million Venezuelans
who've left their country
in the last
ten years
because of the economic
and political collapse of that country.
But it's also folks from other parts,
about three quarters.
But the other quarter are folks
from all over the world, from Ecuador,
which is going through
a spike in violence
where organized crime is taking over,
people coming from Asia and Africa.
And it's gotten easier
to come through the Darian Gap,
but it's still incredibly dangerous.
But it is now possible to do.
And there's now
smugglers who dedicate themselves
to getting people through and folks
who discovered they can do this.
And of course, an increase further
south coming through the Darian Gap
and starting in South America
through Central America
translates to what
we're seeing at the US-Mexico border now.
And it's part of why the Eagle Pass
mayor says he.
Well, it's not part of why,
but he says he hasn't heard
from the Biden administration
amid the migrant crossings.
But what can the government
do to help border communities,
especially when they're much smaller
than cities
like New York City, who have also said
they're they're struggling with the
influx of migrants
You know, it's really
impressive what's happened
in border communities.
My colleagues
and I spent some time
in a number of the border
communities, actually,
from California to Texas.
Over the past few months.
And there's, generally speaking,
a real ability to collaborate
right now
between the federal water
authorities, the city governments
and the nonprofit groups to
to allow people to move on quickly
and not have to stay in
border communities.
But when they get a big surge
like happened
in Eagle Pass last week,
it just completely overpowers the system.
And you know,
that may be the other sort of big story
going on here,
which is,
you know,
right now
the sheer numbers are overpowering
the system.
You know,
you see that in Eagle Pass last week.
But overall, you know, U.S.
government returns
maybe a thousand people a day
to countries of origin or to Mexico,
all others,
they have to figure out
what to do with them.
Either
they have to keep them in custody
or they have to let them go.
And now we're getting,
you know, seven, eight,
9000 people a day.
And that also means the U.S.
government has overpowered the ability
to do any sort of deterrence
at the border is limited.
And people discover that
and they know
they have a pretty good shot
at getting in and, you know, help us.
Help us contextualize here,
because remember, back in May,
we were covering, as many people were,
the end of what was title
42, the the pandemic era to restriction
that was aimed at deterring
migrants or at least
stemming the flow of it.
Yet when that went away,
many thought that, okay,
maybe this is a situation
that's a little bit more tenable
in the future.
What is the dynamic
that may have stemmed
from that fault
that we are seeing now, if we are seeing
ripples from that dynamic
I think we are seeing ripples.
I mean, it's
we're back to where we were
in terms of numbers.
We were not over it,
but we're back to where we were.
What they're trying to do is three
has a three part strategy, right?
They are trying to make it harder
to cross between ports of entry.
There's now it's harder to apply
for asylum,
but it's turned out
to be very difficult
to implement
that because they do have
to give people due process
and see if they're they're still eligible
for asylum or not.
And that's taking a long time
and it limits the numbers.
They can return
They're trying to open
more legal pathways
so people can come legally.
And they've done some of that.
But it takes a long time
to to be effective.
And they're trying to surge
in return for having less asylum
at the border,
do more refugee resettlement,
you know, within the region.
But that's also hard to do.
And what we've seen in the meantime,
they have a great strategy
I mean, they're moving towards it,
but just the sheer numbers have gone up
and people have discovered
that their chance of getting in
is pretty good
and they're willing to risk people
coming from extreme circumstances.
And they
they look at the odds
and they say, you know,
I might get deported.
Some bad things can happen to me
on the route.
But I'm willing to try it
because I think if I get to the U.S.
border, there's a good chance
I'll get in. Yeah. Yeah.
And I should say that
when the pandemic era
public health restrictions
lifted from Title 42,
the new measures that were put in
place were aimed
at deterring some of the migrants
coming in.
But clearly, months later,
we are seeing the effects
now in this surge
starting from
well before the US-Mexico border.
I've got to leave it there.
Andrew Seeley,
thank you so much for being with us.