In the Mexican border city of Matamoros, just feet from the Gateway International Bridge to Brownsville, a few dozen asylum-seekers cluster beneath the shade of a lone tree shielding them from the blistering Tamaulipan sun. Children sleep on blankets laid on the concrete, chase one another about and play soccer. Cubans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans and Cameroonians, the refugees have been stranded here for as long as three months — the result of a year-old Trump policy known as “metering,” whereby Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processes only a tiny number of asylum-seekers per day at ports of entry.
Just days before, a Salvadoran father, mother and 23-month-old child had arrived at the same site, hoping to start a new life in the North Texas city of Irving. Facing the same interminable wait, the family decided to brave the Rio Grande illegally. The father, Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, and child, Valeria, were found drowned on the riverbank the following morning. An image of the pair went viral, and they were mentioned by name during last week’s Democratic presidential debates.
“The people who cross like that, they do it because they’re desperate,” said Jennifer, an 18-year-old Cuban, when I visited Matamoros on Friday. (Like others in this story, she requested that her last name be withheld.) As we chatted, Jennifer cradled her 8-month-old son, Flavio. Soon, a group of Cubans — all hoping to apply for asylum and live in Florida — had joined the conversation to voice their frustration with their months-long waits. “We don’t understand the long delays,” said Jennifer’s husband, Alberto, adding that most of the families who get through are quickly released. “Once one is out, why not take another family?”
