Migrants making their way through Mexico toward the United States navigate a minefield of dangers and bureaucracy. This week, Courthouse News has been looking at what they face and the people who help them along the way; this is the final installment.
TOLUCA, Mexico (CN) – It's hard to tell where the auto shop ends and the shelter starts at Armando Vilchis Vargas' “albergue” an hour west of Mexico City.
The migrant shelter, one of three managed by the Catholic Church of Mexico City, is nestled between junk cars and piles of tires. A corrugated steel door separates the space from a courtyard, where Vargas earns his living repairing cars.
Although he has partnered for seven years with the church to give the migrants food and shelter, Vargas says that's not their top request.
“Papers,” he said, referring to a registration program Mexico started this past December that allows migrants to register and work as they make their way through the county, most toward the United States.
The embassies check backgrounds of each migrant, then in about a week they are vetted and get identification cards. Vargas has helped more than 4,000 people register since the program launched, he said, showing a foot-tall stack of applications.
As with many shelters throughout Mexico and in the United States, most migrants come from Central America. But Vargas says the past year he has seen more people fleeing political and economic unrest in Venezuela.
“Honduras is the first place, the second place is El Salvador, the third place Guatemala, and Nicaragua is fourth,” he said, adding that the flow of migrants is far lower now than it was seven years ago when he started.
About 1,200 miles to the north, in the border town of Nogales, Mexico, Casa San Juan Bosco houses about 75 migrants per night. Hilda and Francisco Louiero have offered their large house perched on a steep hill to migrants for decades.
Migrants filter into Casa San Juan through the evening, and at about 8 p.m. each registers their name and country of origin. Many of them are waiting for a chance to apply for asylum in the U.S. and stay at the shelter for weeks. The shelter has helped tens of thousands of migrants over the years.
The flow of humanity through Casa San Juan Bosco is relentless.
Tucson, Arizona
Every day in Tucson, Arizona, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement release scores of immigrants caught crossing the Arizona border with Mexico. Under U.S. law, anyone who is already in the country can apply for asylum and must be given a court date to return for a hearing.
Homeland Security buses drop those asylum seekers at a former monastery that is now a 300-bed shelter for people ICE releases.
“If we didn't take them in, they'd drop them at the bus station,” said Diego Pina Lopez, lead program coordinator for Catholic Community of Southern Arizona's Casa Alitas Program. The organization is 100 percent volunteer-run, including Lopez.
The donations come in daily – a washing machine from a local appliance store, racks of clothing from a local high school, food and clothes in a steady stream from groups and individuals.
Lopez dismisses the notion that people are seeking asylum just to get jobs. They're leaving because they were raped, or threatened with machetes by gangs. Most seek safety, he said.
“You're not going to risk the journey just because you're going to get a job,” he said.
Most days ICE drops off more than 50, occasionally more than 100 people, most of whom stay one to three days.
Migrants get a snack, receive a quick medical screening by a doctor or physician's assistant, then an intake interview. There is a clothing room where migrants can have two changes of clothing – many come with only the clothes they're wearing.