More than 4,700 at the Tijuana border; more on the way
The temporary shelter set up at Unidad Benito Juarez in Tijuana is packed full in the gym to include the baseball field where tents and makeshift tents have been set up for people from the Central American migrant caravan.
Conditions are rapidly deteriorating inside the makeshift refuge at the Unidad Deportiva Benito Juárez sports center in Tijuana, where about 4,500 Central American migrants are sheltered, and Tijuana officials are scrambling to find another location for new arrivals.
Federal officials on both sides of the border estimated another 1,200 migrants arrived by bus and foot from Mexicali between Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon, adding to the already cramped and unsanitary state inside the sports arena.
Thousands more Central Americans traveling through Mexico are on the way to Tijuana, according to the latest estimates from U.S. Customs and Border Protection field offices. They calculate about 2,300 more people in caravans are trudging through the Mexican states of Jalisco and Querétaro towards Baja California, with a likely destination of Tijuana.
Other groups numbering in the hundreds are scattered throughout Mexico in Sonora and Mexicali, according to CBP.
Mexican federal officials and Tijuana leaders say Benito Juárez cannot handle any more arrivals while maintaining safe and sanitary conditions.
Frustration and exhaustion is mounting among groups of migrants who have been traveling under harsh conditions for weeks.
“I would describe the conditions inside as still manageable and somewhat in order, but if more people arrive, it’s just impractical to shelter more people here, the shelter is going to be overcome,” said Edgar Corzo Sosa, Mexico’s national director of human rights, who is in Tijuana to monitor the caravan.
Migrants arriving by bus late Wednesday afternoon hunkered down in the last remaining empty spaces of the sports stadium, spreading out their sleeping bags and blankets on the damp and muddy fields.
Sosa said the shelter has already far exceeded its capacity of 3,000, and he worried about the kitchen being able to prepare an extra 1,000 meals to accommodate more people. He also said there are not enough restrooms.
“We are already looking for another place,” Sosa said Wednesday. “Today, a nd in the morning, we are urgently searching for another place where people arriving can go.”
City officials estimated there were about 4,700 migrants at the Tijuana border, 4,500 of whom are in the Benito Juárez. About 200 others are spread out in shelters throughout the city.
Around 1 p.m. Wednesday, a charter bus of about 40 Central Americans, frayed and emboldened by reaching the near-final leg of their journey, unloaded outside Benito Juarez.
Nelson Villanueva, 16, said he traveled from Honduras on his own, finally arriving Wednesday afternoon after a month and eight days on the road.
“I feel tired and hungry,” said Villanueva, stepping off the bus. “But I feel like ‘I did it!”
Villanueva said he was unaware the shelter could be his home for many months as he awaits an initial asylum screening with U.S. immigration officials.
“I am going straight over there tomorrow,” Villanueva said, motioning in the direction of metal fencing hovering over the shelter, just a short distance away.
Not all those in the caravan were able to maintain the same enthusiasm, when faced with the reality of remaining at the shelter for up to six months.
Lourdes Lopez slumped on the curb across from a long line to get chicken noodle soup and tortillas. Her six-month-old baby girl bounced in her lap.
“The only reason I came here is so she would survive,” Lopez said, snuggling her infant. Lopez said she fled gang violence in Honduras.
Tijuana City Councilwoman Monica Vega said there is no long-term plan on how to shelter and feed the migrants for months.
“Tijuana is a city of migrants. That is our nature. I think we have to help these people,” said Vega, before she went inside to tour Benito Juarez. “I can’t see children and women in this condition, expecting something better, for better opportunities in life. ”
Vega said she expected within the next few days the city would open at least one additional shelter, but she added there was no concrete plan or location identified for the extra resources as of late Wednesday afternoon.
Asked how the situation became so overwhelming for the city of Tijuana when the migrant caravan has been expected for weeks, Vega said different levels of the Tijuana government were trying to pass on the responsibility.
“We were faced with the federal government and state government and municipal government all unclear on who would be in charge, and no one wanted to take care of this thing,” Vega said. “As the municipal government, we have to take care of these people, and we have to take care of our community.”
Open as a migrant shelter for only about a week, Benito Juarez is beginning to resemble an overwhelmed refugee camp.
On the north side of the stadium, human waste is overflowing from portable restrooms, mixing with overflow water from an open-air shower area.
Groups of men and women are showering with no privacy, wading into near shin deep puddles of rancid, muddy water, pooling together with the overflow from the restrooms. Volunteer Edwin Bonilla, a Tijuana resident was working diligently Wednesday to build a makeshift structure out of donated wood that would offer some privacy, and a barrier between the men’s showers and the ones for women and children.
Outside the shelter, Tijuana’s secretary of public safety, Marco Antonio Sotomayor Amezcua, monitored groups gathering around to vent frustrations about their accommodations. Some expressed anger that there is not enough room for everyone inside the stadium to stay together and many are spread out in shelters across Tijuana.
Sotomayor said officers are closely watching the activities of a small faction of the larger caravan, suspected of using illegal drugs.
Earlier in the morning, a group of about 400 men arrived after walking through the night from Mexicali, carrying bright orange sleeping bags and backpacks.
The group said a 17-year-old caravan member died after being hit by a truck in the middle of the street on the La Rumorosa, a dangerous stretch of road in between Mexicali and Tecate. The boy’s death was confirmed by a Mexican public safety official.
His traveling companions said they did not know his name, but Joseph Rodriguez, a 20-year-old Honduran shook his head at his younger friend’s misfortune, remarking the teenager died so close, but so far away from his goal of getting to the United States.
“We’re tired and cold and hungry right now,” Rodriguez said, “but we made it. We come for the opportunity, and to work.”
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The temporary shelter set up at Unidad Benito Juarez in Tijuana is packed full in the gym to include the baseball field where tents and makeshift tents have been set up for people from the Central American migrant caravan.
Conditions are rapidly deteriorating inside the makeshift refuge at the Unidad Deportiva Benito Juárez sports center in Tijuana, where about 4,500 Central American migrants are sheltered, and Tijuana officials are scrambling to find another location for new arrivals.
Federal officials on both sides of the border estimated another 1,200 migrants arrived by bus and foot from Mexicali between Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon, adding to the already cramped and unsanitary state inside the sports arena.
Thousands more Central Americans traveling through Mexico are on the way to Tijuana, according to the latest estimates from U.S. Customs and Border Protection field offices. They calculate about 2,300 more people in caravans are trudging through the Mexican states of Jalisco and Querétaro towards Baja California, with a likely destination of Tijuana.
Other groups numbering in the hundreds are scattered throughout Mexico in Sonora and Mexicali, according to CBP.
Mexican federal officials and Tijuana leaders say Benito Juárez cannot handle any more arrivals while maintaining safe and sanitary conditions.
Frustration and exhaustion is mounting among groups of migrants who have been traveling under harsh conditions for weeks.
“I would describe the conditions inside as still manageable and somewhat in order, but if more people arrive, it’s just impractical to shelter more people here, the shelter is going to be overcome,” said Edgar Corzo Sosa, Mexico’s national director of human rights, who is in Tijuana to monitor the caravan.
Migrants arriving by bus late Wednesday afternoon hunkered down in the last remaining empty spaces of the sports stadium, spreading out their sleeping bags and blankets on the damp and muddy fields.
Sosa said the shelter has already far exceeded its capacity of 3,000, and he worried about the kitchen being able to prepare an extra 1,000 meals to accommodate more people. He also said there are not enough restrooms.
“We are already looking for another place,” Sosa said Wednesday. “Today, a nd in the morning, we are urgently searching for another place where people arriving can go.”
City officials estimated there were about 4,700 migrants at the Tijuana border, 4,500 of whom are in the Benito Juárez. About 200 others are spread out in shelters throughout the city.
Around 1 p.m. Wednesday, a charter bus of about 40 Central Americans, frayed and emboldened by reaching the near-final leg of their journey, unloaded outside Benito Juarez.
Nelson Villanueva, 16, said he traveled from Honduras on his own, finally arriving Wednesday afternoon after a month and eight days on the road.
“I feel tired and hungry,” said Villanueva, stepping off the bus. “But I feel like ‘I did it!”
Villanueva said he was unaware the shelter could be his home for many months as he awaits an initial asylum screening with U.S. immigration officials.
“I am going straight over there tomorrow,” Villanueva said, motioning in the direction of metal fencing hovering over the shelter, just a short distance away.
Not all those in the caravan were able to maintain the same enthusiasm, when faced with the reality of remaining at the shelter for up to six months.
Lourdes Lopez slumped on the curb across from a long line to get chicken noodle soup and tortillas. Her six-month-old baby girl bounced in her lap.
“The only reason I came here is so she would survive,” Lopez said, snuggling her infant. Lopez said she fled gang violence in Honduras.
Tijuana City Councilwoman Monica Vega said there is no long-term plan on how to shelter and feed the migrants for months.
“Tijuana is a city of migrants. That is our nature. I think we have to help these people,” said Vega, before she went inside to tour Benito Juarez. “I can’t see children and women in this condition, expecting something better, for better opportunities in life. ”
Vega said she expected within the next few days the city would open at least one additional shelter, but she added there was no concrete plan or location identified for the extra resources as of late Wednesday afternoon.
Asked how the situation became so overwhelming for the city of Tijuana when the migrant caravan has been expected for weeks, Vega said different levels of the Tijuana government were trying to pass on the responsibility.
“We were faced with the federal government and state government and municipal government all unclear on who would be in charge, and no one wanted to take care of this thing,” Vega said. “As the municipal government, we have to take care of these people, and we have to take care of our community.”
Open as a migrant shelter for only about a week, Benito Juarez is beginning to resemble an overwhelmed refugee camp.
On the north side of the stadium, human waste is overflowing from portable restrooms, mixing with overflow water from an open-air shower area.
Groups of men and women are showering with no privacy, wading into near shin deep puddles of rancid, muddy water, pooling together with the overflow from the restrooms. Volunteer Edwin Bonilla, a Tijuana resident was working diligently Wednesday to build a makeshift structure out of donated wood that would offer some privacy, and a barrier between the men’s showers and the ones for women and children.
Outside the shelter, Tijuana’s secretary of public safety, Marco Antonio Sotomayor Amezcua, monitored groups gathering around to vent frustrations about their accommodations. Some expressed anger that there is not enough room for everyone inside the stadium to stay together and many are spread out in shelters across Tijuana.
Sotomayor said officers are closely watching the activities of a small faction of the larger caravan, suspected of using illegal drugs.
Earlier in the morning, a group of about 400 men arrived after walking through the night from Mexicali, carrying bright orange sleeping bags and backpacks.
The group said a 17-year-old caravan member died after being hit by a truck in the middle of the street on the La Rumorosa, a dangerous stretch of road in between Mexicali and Tecate. The boy’s death was confirmed by a Mexican public safety official.
His traveling companions said they did not know his name, but Joseph Rodriguez, a 20-year-old Honduran shook his head at his younger friend’s misfortune, remarking the teenager died so close, but so far away from his goal of getting to the United States.
“We’re tired and cold and hungry right now,” Rodriguez said, “but we made it. We come for the opportunity, and to work.”
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/sd-...l#nws=true
