The shelter, an old factory – has been used as a temporary shelter for the nearly 2,000 migrants that arrived there on dozens of buses February 4, according to the Washington Examiner.
Jose Borrego, a Coahuila state spokesman, confirmed that the shelter in Piedras Negras, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, was closed Tuesday, a day earlier than scheduled. Many of the migrants, mostly from Guatemala and Honduras, have already been bused to neighboring states, leading to accusations that Coahuila is dumping the migrants on other cities to get rid of their problem.
The mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Armando Cabada, said Monday he might file a complaint against Coahuila officials. “They are offering them free transportation to bring them here. That kind of thing is not fair,” Cabada said.
The migrants at the shelter had been waiting for entry into the United States, with the intention of applying for asylum. But only a dozen were allowed to request asylum at the Eagle Pass crossing each day. Other than the few each day allowed out of the shelter, Mexican police have guarded the fenced-in warehouse 24 hours a day.
EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: MEXICO CLOSES BORDER FACILITY IN PIEDRAS NEGRAS WHERE CARAVAN MIGRANTS WERE HELD.
A US law enforcement official just sent me these pics with the words “everybody gone.”
More info: pic.twitter.com/fYag6XEGZy
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) February 19, 2019
Trump policy change adds to problem
The Trump administration’s policy change that went into effect recently, forces migrants requesting asylum to stay in Mexico while their cases move through the immigration courts, a process that can take weeks or even months.
At least twice last week, some migrants, frustrated at the long wait behind the heavily guarded facility, tried to break out and fought federal police. Those who fought police were immediately deported.
Miguel Riquelme, governor of Mexico’s Coahuila state, said Mara Salvatrucha members (MS-13) were hiding in the group of around 1,600 migrants staying at a federally operated facility
Mexico deports MS-13 gang members found in caravan near Texas border February 19, 2019
“We have data that there are agitators inside the shelter, that there are members of the caravan who are provoking others, some of them belong to the Mara Salvatrucha , some others who bring criminal records in their country and what we have been doing is deporting them directly with Migration,” Riquelme told local reporters, according to an English language translation.
The idea of holding people for weeks and maybe months in a detention facility – along with the high costs involved in providing for them resulted in the government allowing migrants to apply for visas to legally work and live in the country. Instead of a fence at its Southern border, Mexico now has a gate, and it is wide open, although migrants have to stand in a long line to get in. But it is part of Mexico’s new open door migration policy that started last week, according to CBS News.
In the meantime, the Trump administration, in a show of force- has flooded Eagle Pass, right across the border, with hundreds of law enforcement personnel. Over 100 U.S. police vehicles have lined a one-mile stretch of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, every day.
This is unprecedented. Look at all the US law enforcement vehicles lined up literally on the border across from where the caravan is. Border Patrol is calling it a “show of force.”pic.twitter.com/1r7gqP6znR
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) February 10, 2019
Last month, border patrol sources told Fox News that authorities arrested “more than 100 people believed to be El Salvadorian gang members” in the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector in Texas since last October.
