EAGLE PASS, Texas — Daniel Bermudez's family fled Venezuela and were headed to the United States to seek asylum when a freight train passing through Mexico was stopped by immigration officials.
His wife tried to explain that the family had permission to go to the United States.
Instead, they flew her to Mexico's southern border as part of a crackdown that U.S. officials say has helped dramatically reduce illegal border crossings.
In addition to forcing migrants off trains, Mexico resumed air and bus transport of migrants to the south of the country and began flying some migrants to Venezuela.
Any reduction in illegal crossings, even if temporary, is welcome news to the White House.
President Joe Biden's administration continues to hold talks with Senate negotiators over asylum restrictions, with $110 billion in aid to Ukraine and Israel also at stake.
Bermudez said he was separated from his family because his wife consulted authorities while collecting her stepson and his belongings.
He wanted to flee, but his wife insisted that he should not because she had booked him with U.S. immigration authorities and processed the process.
“I told her, 'Don't trust them,' let's go into the bush,” Bermudez said, adding that other migrants had also fled. He recalled her saying, “Why are you sending us away when you have an appointment?”
Last week, Bermudez, his stepchild and two other relatives waited for her at a shelter in the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras, and she boarded a bus back in hopes of still making it in time for her date. was.
Mexican immigration authorities conducted at least 22 flights from the U.S. border region to southern cities in the last 10 days of December, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data. was dispatched.
Most were from Piedras Negras, just across the border in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Mexico also operated two deportation flights to Venezuela carrying 329 migrants.
The period was punctuated by Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Mexico City on December 28 to combat unprecedented border crossings into the United States.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the funding shortfall that had caused the immigration agency to suspend deportations and other operations had been resolved. Details were not disclosed.
U.S. authorities said the number of people arrested for illegally entering the U.S. from Mexico fell to about 2,500 on Monday, down from more than 10,000 on several days in December.
Apprehensions in the Border Patrol's busiest areas totaled 13,800 people in the seven days ending Friday, down 29% from 19,400 two weeks ago, said John Modlin, chief of the Tucson, Arizona, division. .
The decline prompted U.S. Customs and Border Protection to reopen the Lukeville, Ariz., port of entry Thursday after a month of closing the most direct route from Phoenix to the nearest beaches.
The U.S. also reopened Eagle Pass and three other locations.
Maverick County Judge Ramsey English Cantu said businesses in Eagle Pass, a city of about 30,000 people, were closed to traffic while the bridge was closed to vehicle traffic to redeploy Border Patrol agents to assist in immigration processing. He said sales had taken a “huge hit.”
“We're pretty much surviving everything coming from the Mexican side,” he said.
Last month, CBP resumed cargo traffic in Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, after a five-day closure. U.S. officials said the move was in response to as many as 1,000 migrants attempting to cross the border by walking through Mexico on a single train.
On Thursday, there were about 200 migrants at Casa del Migrante in Piedras Negras, down from a recent maximum of 1,500.
Among them was Manuel Rodriguez, 40, who said his family would miss an asylum appointment made through the U.S. government's CBP One app.
He said the appointment was registered by his in-laws, who were deported to Venezuela after authorities boarded the bus they were traveling on.
“Everything was in her name and she lost everything,” Rodriguez said.
The proposals being discussed by White House and Senate negotiators include new expulsion powers that would deny the right to seek asylum if a certain threshold of illegal border crossings is met.
The creation of such an authority will almost certainly depend on Mexico's willingness to bring back non-Mexicans who entered the country illegally, which it currently does on a limited scale.
Mexico's aid repeals Trump-era policies that forced 70,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for U.S. immigration court hearings and denied them the right to apply for asylum during the COVID-19 pandemic It was extremely important to do so.
Andrew Selly, director of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., cautioned against exaggerating Mexico's role in the recent traffic decline.
Panama reported fewer than 25,000 migrants walked through the Darien jungle in December, about half the October level, a sign that fewer people are heading to the United States from South America.
Migration typically decreases in December due to holidays and cold weather.
“While the United States can rely on Mexico for short-term enforcement effects on migrants at the border, the long-term effects are not necessarily clear,” Sele said.
