MEXICO CITY — “I did it! I did it!” Eliezer Lopez shouted, jumping to his feet, raising his arms to the air and making a cross on his chest. His joy was contagious, and his friends spilled out of nearby tents to celebrate with him.
Lopez, a 20-year-old Venezuelan migrant living in Mexico City, had reason to celebrate: After several setbacks, he had secured an appointment to seek asylum in the United States.
He is one of thousands of migrants who have made the journey to the United States and arrived in Mexico's capital, the southernmost point of the country. Until recently Migrants can register to apply for an appointment to apply for asylum. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mobile App It is known as CBP One.
Since the Biden administration announced it in June significant restrictions on immigrants seeking asylum; The app has become one of the few ways to apply for asylum at the southwest border.
This US asylum policy and its geographical restrictions have fueled the emergence of migrant camps across Mexico's capital, where thousands of migrants wait in limbo for weeks, and sometimes months, in crowded makeshift camps with poor sanitation and squalid living conditions.
From the stopover point to the temporary destination
Historically, Mexico City has not been a stopover for migrants heading north, trying to quickly cross the country to reach the northern border. But delayed appointments, the dangers plaguing Mexico's cartel-controlled northern border cities, combined with Mexican authorities' increasing crackdown on migrants, have transformed the city from a crossing point into a temporary destination for thousands.
Some migrant camps Dismantled by immigration authorities Some homes have been abandoned over time, while others, like the one Lopez has been living in for the past few months, remain untouched.
Like Lopez, many migrants choose to wait for appointments in the capital, which is somewhat safer, but Mexico City presents its own challenges.
Shelters have limited capacity, unlike in major U.S. cities like Chicago and New York. I was in a rush to find a home last winter. Once in Mexico City, migrants are largely left to fend for themselves.
Andrew Bahena, coordinator for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles (CHIRLA), said many migrants were stuck in southern Mexican cities such as Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border, until late 2023. Many tried to disguise their location to get around CBP One's geographic restrictions, but once U.S. authorities became aware of that, more migrants began heading to Mexico City and being interviewed from there, he said.
This resulted in a growing migrant population living in refugee camps in Mexico City.
“We call this externalization of the border, and it's something that the U.S. and Mexico have been doing together for years,” Bahena said. “The CBP One app is probably one of the best examples of that today.”
“These are asylum seekers, not homeless people in Mexico,” he added.
A maze of tents and tarpaulins
When Lopez first arrived in Mexico City at the end of April, she considered renting a room but realized that wasn't an option.
He worked three days a week at a market, earning 450 pesos ($23) a day, despite the fact that rent was 3,000 pesos ($157) a week per person sharing a room with strangers, a typical rate in Mexican cities with large immigrant populations.
“The camp is like a shelter,” Lopez said, where migrants share space with people they know, avoid the curfews and strict shelter rules and can extend their stay if they need to.
The campsite is a maze of tents and tarps, and some people call their spaces “ranchitos,” or mini-ranches, built out of wood, cardboard, plastic, blankets and whatever else they can find to protect them from the icy mountain air and the torrential summer rains that batter the city.
At another camp in the La Merced neighborhood, hundreds of blue, yellow and red tents line the square in front of a church, it is one of the capital's largest, just a 20-minute walk from the city center.
“This is where up to 2,000 migrants lived last year,” Bahena said, “about 40 percent were children.”
Migrants in La Merced have organized themselves and built makeshift pumps that draw water from the public water supply and distribute it on a schedule: four buckets of water per tent each day.
“At first there were a lot of problems, there was a lot of trash and the Mexican people didn't like it,” said Hector Javier Magallanes, a Venezuelan migrant who has been waiting for a CBP One appointment for nine months. “Little by little we solved those problems.”
He has set up a 15-person task force to monitor security and infrastructure as more migrants continue to arrive at the camps.
Despite efforts to keep the camps clean and orderly, residents have been unable to avoid outbreaks of disease exacerbated by the sudden change in climate.
Kaylin Mendoza, a 27-year-old Honduran migrant, said her children, especially her 1-year-old daughter, often catch colds.
“I'm most worried about her because she will take the longest to recover,” she said. Mendoza has tried to get free medical care from humanitarian organizations in the camp, but medical resources are limited.
Israel Resendiz, mobile team coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, said the uncertainty of life in the camps weighs on migrants' mental health: “It's not like people who are waiting for an appointment can stay in a hotel, rent a room or earn money for food. The majority don't have these resources.”
Mexico City's secretary of inclusion and social welfare and secretary of the interior did not respond to AP's requests for comment on the camps. A spokeswoman for Mexico City's mayor-elect, Clara Brugada, said the issue must first be discussed at the federal level.
Meanwhile, tensions between camp residents and neighbouring communities are growing, sometimes leading to mass evictions from the camps.
In late April, residents of the Juarez neighborhood at the epicenter of the outbreak blocked off some of the city's busiest streets, shouting, “This street is not a place to evacuate!”
Eduardo Ramirez, one of the protest organizers, said it was the government's job to “help poor people who come from their home countries in search of something better and who unfortunately have to pass through Mexico.”
“They are sleeping on the streets because the government has abandoned them,” he said.
Tension and fear are widespread in the camp, which is home to about 200 families in the northern Vallejo neighborhood.
“One day they poured chlorine water on one child, and boiling water on another,” recalled Sonia Rodriguez, a 50-year-old Salvadoran resident of the camp.
She makes her “ranchito” as dignified as possible – it has a cooking grill, bunk beds and a TV – but her face darkens as she recalls that she has spent 10 months living in an impromptu camp that is not her home, has no possessions and is far from any normal life.
