A migrant from Venezuela named Julio Marquez is currently selling lollipops near the border in the city of Ciudad Juarez, which is located in the state of Mexico‘s northern region. He is holding a cardboard sign that has the following message scrawled in marker on it: “Help us with whatever comes from your heart.”
The same message is intended for United States Vice President Joe Biden, who will be visiting the city of El Paso, Texas, on Sunday. El Paso is located immediately across the border from Mexico.
“We hope that he helps us, that he lets us through since we’re suffering a lot here in Mexico,” said Marquez, who is 32 years old. “We’re hoping that he lets us through.” It is required of him to listen to what those on this side of the argument have to say.
This is the first time that Vice President Biden has visited the border in his role as president, and it comes just a few days after a new policy that is intended to reduce illegal migration was criticized by advocates for migrants for restricting access to asylum. Advocates for migrants say that the policy makes it more difficult for migrants to seek refuge in the United States.
The two-pronged approach provides legal pathways to the United States for certain Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Venezuelans who have sponsors in the United States, while at the same time expelling people of those nationalities back to Mexico if they attempt to cross the border without permission. Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Venezuelans are eligible for legal pathways to the United States under the two-pronged approach.
On Saturday, migration agents and state police from Mexico patrolled the concrete banks of the Rio Grande river, which serves as a barrier between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. During the same period, numerous families traveled in groups and attempted to reach the United States by climbing through concertina wire loops.
“Duck down,” Erlan Garay of Honduras instructed a Colombian mom and her three children, one of them was an 8-year-old boy holding a Spiderman toy. The youngster’s Spiderman toy was a part of the family gathering.
“They’re going to request asylum, they have a chance,” he remarked, adding that he would look for somewhere else to clandestinely cross the border, and he shrugged off the drop of blood that appeared on his hand as a result of the fence pricking him. “They’re going to request asylum, they have a chance,” he said.
According to Marquez, he and his partner, Yalimar Chirinos, who is 19 years old, do not match the qualifications for the new legal immigration program since they do not have a sponsor in the United States. Shalimar Chirinos is a student at the University of the District of Columbia.
Chirinos, who was dressed for the freezing weather in a black jacket and a single glove with pink and blue stripes, remarked that “they’re continually revising the regulations, every week.” Chirinos was covered up against the cold weather with a black jacket and gloves.
The couple arrived in Mexico five months ago after making their way through several different countries as well as the perilous rainforest that covers much of the Darien region, which is located between Colombia and Panama. They spend the night on the pavement, without a tent or blankets, and they hug each other for warmth because they are scared of the robbers who are known to loot and kidnap migrants. The thieves are known to operate in this area.
They were able to sneak across the border into Texas at one point, but after being without food or shelter for several days, they turned themselves into the authorities in the United States. The authorities in the United States subsequently deported them back to Mexico.
Marquez has claimed that he will continue to wait for a further fifteen days in the hope that he will uncover a lawful route into the United States. After that, he will begin looking at different options for getting back to Venezuela.
He managed to stifle his sobs long enough to speak the following phrase: “I don’t want to be here anymore.” She addressed the President of Mexico with the following statement: “Mr. President, if you are going to deport me, send me back to my country, not back here to Mexico.” “If you’re going to deport me, at least send me back to the nation I was born in.”
Others, although having been exiled to Mexico themselves, did not let this discourage them from continuing their journey. “Send me wherever you want, and I’ll come back,” said Jonathan Tovar, 29, as he spoke on Friday from behind the gate of Mexico’s migration office in Ciudad Juarez. Tovar was speaking from the position of an undocumented immigrant at the time of this conversation. “I am writing to request that the President of the United States grant my family and me the chance to start over.”
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