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The
subject of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border conjures images of
people from Latin America, particularly Central America, who are
fleeing poverty and violence. However, the dynamics of migration into
the U.S. are changing. Increasingly, many migrants crossing the
border are from nations in Africa and the Caribbean, particularly
Haiti, making asylum seekers and the border a Black issue as well.
In
June, U.S. authorities intercepted a record
number of African migrants and refugees
at the border with Mexico, as Foreign Policy recently reported. There
are two factors involved with this new trend. On the one hand,
hundreds of Black people are traveling from nations as far away as
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan,
escaping violence in their home nations and emerging in South America
by sea, air and foot, and making the dangerous journey through
Colombia and Panama en route to America.
On
the other hand, Europe has experienced a dramatic decline in the
influx of African people. Both phenomena–the increase in
Africans crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, and the simultaneous drop
in Africans making their way to Europe– are attributed to a new
policy adopted by the European Union in 2018 which made Libya the
primary center for processing applications from asylum seekers and
refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe via North
Africa. Many
Africans have drowned
while trying to cross the sea to enter Europe. Rather than take their
chances and make their way through Libya, where many have perished,
migrants are increasingly opting for the much longer and costlier
route taking them thousands of miles through South America and
ultimately the U.S. Like their Central American counterparts, many
African refugees are travelling in families in the hopes of
facilitating their entry.
In
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, across the border from Laredo, Texas, 1,500
West Africans and Central Americans find themselves in an asylum
holding pattern. At a makeshift refugee camp in the city of Ciudad
Acuņa, Mexico —across the border from Del Rio, Texas,
along the Rio Grande — asylum seekers are in limbo as Trump
restricts their entry, in violation of what immigrants’ rights
advocates say is their legal right to seek asylum. According to the
Los Angeles Times, 15,000 refugees wait at the border, while another
15,000 were returned to Mexico after crossing the border. U.S. Border
Patrol agents have arrested 40,000 people from 50 countries this
year, including those of African, Haitian, Cuban, Central American
and South American origin, and a rapidly increasing number of Indian
and Bangladeshi origin. In June, a 6-year old girl
from India died of hypothermia at the border in 108 degree heat.
Mexican
officials have encountered 3,000 African migrants in 2018 and 2,000
this year to date, with Cameroon, Congo and Angola as the chief
countries of origin. Africa has endured a refugee
crisis
in which its people have died and faced racist treatment. In 2018,
people from the Congo accounted for the third-largest group of new
refugees in the world at 123,000, with Cameroon having 447,000 new
refugees, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. Primarily African
developing nations take in 80 percent of the global refugee
population, which strains these countries’ health care and
water systems. Trump’s decision to cut aid to African nations,
particularly those with large numbers of refugees, may exacerbate the
world refugee crisis by fueling the conflicts that make migration
necessary, notes The Intercept.
According
to a report from the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), the
face of migration is changing. People from the Caribbean are the
largest group of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border other than
migrants from Central America and Mexico. BAJI notes the 7.0
magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010 — leaving 300,000
injured and as many as 316,000 dead — was a leading cause of
the migration of Haitians. Nearly 7,000 Haitian immigrants live in a
number of Mexican border towns, and “19,000 African and Haitian
migrants arrived in Mexico in 2016 and up to 700 a day were arriving
in Tapachula, Mexico in that same year.”
Last
year, over 3,000 Haitians went to Tijuana, Mexico, in the hopes of
making it to the U.S. Many stayed and formed a community there after
facing a protracted asylum process. Facing pressure to reduce the
flow of migrants into the U.S., and threats from President Trump to
impose tariffs on its imports, Mexico returned 81 migrants to Haiti
in June after several attempted to flee the airplane during an
uprising at the airport in the southern state of Chiapas. Also that
month in Chiapas, home to the largest detention facility in Mexico,
hundreds of Haitian and African migrants rose up and attempted to
flee their harsh conditions. Black people detained in Mexico have
complained of vermin, abuse from guards, a lack of food and medical
care, and cramped living conditions in which 50 people sleep in rooms
only 9 feet by 12 feet.
Regarding
refugees from Central America, BAJI notes that in one year, 70,000
accompanied minors crossed the U.S.-Mexico border “fleeing
environmental harm, oppressive governmental regimes sponsored by the
U.S., the transnational war on drugs, and a number of other life
threatening conflicts.” Although the number of Black migrants
from Central America is unknown, the Black immigration advocacy group
believes many of these migrants are members of the Afro-indigenous
Garifuna people, who have struggled with land grabs, drug trafficking
and environmental devastation. Darlin Suazo — a Black mother
from Honduras who was detained for two months and separated from her
child — described her harrowing experiences in ICE custody in
what is known as the “dog kennel” and the “walk-in
freezer.”
BAJI
believes a holistic approach is required to support Black refugees
and their advocates at the border. Examples of what is needed include
funding for Black immigration and refugee organizations; facilitating
Black leadership at the border; ensuring that larger border
organizations serve Black migrants; African-language and Creole
interpreters, and culturally competent lawyers. Black lives matter at
the border.
This commentary was originally published by AtlantaBlackStar.com
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