Fabiola Yépez, a 20-year-old mother from Venezuela, was holed up with her toddler son in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, when she first learned of President Biden’s new executive order restricting asylum seekers. Under a bridge.
Despite witnessing U.S. soldiers on the other side of the border firing non-lethal rounds at migrants the previous day, she planned to try to cross into the United States on Wednesday, hours after the order took effect.
“Maybe it’s not what they say it is and they won’t let us go back,” Ms Yepes said. “I was scared, especially with the baby in my arms.”
Migrants scattered across the U.S.-Mexico border under the new order are trying to understand how one of the strictest border policies Mr. Biden has ever enacted will affect them. The directive allows the U.S. to temporarily close the border to asylum seekers when the seven-day daily average of illegal border crossings reaches 2,500.
In some places along the border on Wednesday, people seemed confused about whether the order was technically in effect and whether border agents should enforce it. Shelter operators and humanitarian workers in Mexico are also scrambling to understand the impact.
Juan Fierro García, director of El Buen Samaritano (Good Samaritan), a migrant shelter in Ciudad Juarez (on the border with El Paso), said that if a large influx of migrants arrives, The new policy could put more pressure on his operation and other local shelters.
He noted that the current relatively low number of migrants in the city reflects a sharp decline since the beginning of the year – the result of Mexico’s stepped-up enforcement efforts to divert migrants from the border to other parts of the country.
Mr. Fierro Garcia said his shelter residents are mostly families who have been waiting for months to interview U.S. immigration officials through CBP One, an app used to schedule asylum appointments. But although the shelter was meant to accommodate 280 people, it could only accommodate 55, and Mr. Fierro García said food was already running short.
“We don’t have the supplies we need to receive more people right now,” he said.
Some people were still entering the United States Wednesday morning, reflecting limited exceptions to the new restrictions, including minors crossing the border alone, victims of human trafficking and people using the CBP One app. In some places it is unclear whether administrative measures will be implemented immediately.
In Mexicali, which borders Calexico, California, more than a dozen migrants who appeared to be from Haiti and had CBP One appointments were allowed into the United States on Wednesday morning. Others, however, were denied entry.
Georgina Esquivel, 40, a food seller in the Mexican state of Morelos, said she had not heard of Biden’s order. Ms. Esquivel wanted to apply for asylum in the United States without a CBP One appointment, and she and her 10-year-old daughter Maria were turned away by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.
“I’m going to stay here,” Ms. Esquivel said. “I don’t even know what to do yet. I don’t want to go back to Morelos and I don’t want to stay in Mexicali.
At an open-air detention site between the two walls that separate the United States and Mexico in San Diego’s Tijuana Valley, dozens of migrants who crossed the border on Wednesday gathered and waited for Border Patrol to pick them up.
“I would say it’s business as usual,” said Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee, a nonprofit that helps immigrants and provides them with food and water. The only change, he said, was that fewer people appeared to be crossing the road on Wednesday compared with previous days.
In El Paso, shelter operators said it may be too early to see the concrete effects of the order.
“We have to give it a chance to grow,” said Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House, a nonprofit shelter system. “You’re talking about an order that involves the logistics implementation aspect. So we have to give them an opportunity to see how this is actually done.
Garcia also stressed that there are very few migrants waiting to cross at the border compared to previous years, so the order is less likely to have a significant impact.
Mexican immigration experts say Biden’s executive order is worrisome and could put asylum seekers at risk.
“I see echoes of mechanisms that have been tried in the past,” said Rafael Velazquez Garcia, Mexico director of the International Rescue Committee, one of the world’s leading refugee aid organizations. He noted that previous actions, such as Article 42, had failed to reduce demand for asylum, increase Mexico’s capacity to receive migrants, or allocate resources to increase opportunities within Mexico.
“I don’t see the point,” he added. “This just doesn’t work.”
Analysts say that in any case, Mexico will bear the brunt of the measure. Eunice Rendon, coordinator of Migration Agenda, a coalition of Mexican advocacy groups, said immigration authorities may process those sent back to the border by detaining them and busing them to distant states to tire them out.
“Mobility is neither safe nor orderly,” Ms. Rendon said. “That’s the opposite of what you want in immigration.”
President Andres Manuel López Obrador denied on Wednesday that executive actions would cause problems for Mexican officials and said his administration was helping the United States reach deals with other countries to directly expel migrants. It was unclear which countries he was referring to or how this might happen.
Some immigrants who have successfully entered the United States in recent days have been surprised by their luck.
José Luis Posada, 23, from El Salvador, said he scaled the border wall near Tijuana on Monday. Border Patrol agents released him Wednesday at a transit station in San Diego.
“It’s a miracle,” Mr. Posada said of his timing. By Wednesday, he learned of Biden’s new executive order.
“God knows what he’s doing, and here we are,” he said.
Erin Corpus Reporting from Mexicali, Mexico, Jonathan Wolfe from San Diego and Reyes Mata III From El Paso.
