All articles filed in U.S./Mexico Border

An update posted by Global Response Management on Thursday showed river water cresting the bank, beginning to flood lower areas of the levee. “We are likely to see water incursion in the next 24-48 hours,” the organization wrote. A downstream river gauge being monitored by both camp residents and volunteers with Resource Center Matamoros showed a 21.8 foot water elevation, prompting the formal implementation of the UNHCR-backed evacuation plan.

Videos sent by Josue, a resident of Camp Dignity — an organized collective of asylum seekers and aid organizations in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, described circumstances in the camp throughout the month of July. Josue and his family run one of several tiendas organized by aid workers in which donated supplies are provided free of cost to asylum seekers and their families. Josue’s family has lived in the camp for a year.

Just under 100 detainees inside the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas have tested positive for COVID-19. The latest numbers published by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, updated on Sunday, showed 97 detainees with positive results but only 12 detainees under isolation or monitoring.

A spokesperson for Ahtna, Inc, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation that contracts detention facility workers at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas, confirmed on Saturday that one of their employees contracted at PIDC passed away on Thursday, June 25.

Storms on Thursday brought more rain to Camp Dignity in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, where 2,500 asylum seekers live in tents along the Rio Grande. For several months, the areas has been cordoned off by Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM) in an attempt to prevent the spread of coronavirus into the population.

Attorneys representing Steven, a severely diabetic Ugandan pastor detained in Los Fresnos, Texas are fighting against a final order of removal issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that would send him back to his home country, where he faces certain death. In a press release published on Wednesday, Angry Tias and Abuelas of the Rio Grande Valley reported that officials in Uganda got word of the young pastor’s imminent deportation, assumed he had already returned, and “took immediate action”.

An overnight protest on the Gateway International Bridge ended early Tuesday morning without incident when Mexican authorities escorted a group of about 100 asylum seekers requesting entry into the United States back to Matamoros.

Dark clouds rolled into Brownsville early Friday afternoon bringing lightning, thunder, and pouring rain to downtown and across the river where an estimated 2,500 asylum seekers live in tents along a dirt levee.

“I present myself. I walk in a line towards the American police. When I present myself, behind me comes a person, a videographer from England filming me. When I present myself and I give the documents to the official and he sees that the videographer is filing, he leaves and does not allow his name to show, as he has on uniform — last name Reyes.”

Update June 23, 2020: ICE reported 58 positive cases among detainees inside PIDC on Monday. 34 of those detainees were under isolation or monitoring. Update June 22, 2020: Numbers published by ICE on Sunday indicated the number of positive cases among detainees inside PIDC was still at 54. The agency reported that only 36 of…