'Listen to people on this side,' migrants in Mexico say as Biden visits
border
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[January 09, 2023]
By Daina Beth Solomon and Jose Luis Gonzalez
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Venezuelan migrant Julio Marquez sells
lollipops near the border in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez,
holding a cardboard sign scrawled with marker: "Help us with whatever
comes from your heart."
He has the same message for U.S. President Joe Biden, who visits the
Texas city of El Paso, just across the border, on Sunday.
"We hope he helps us, that he lets us pass, since we're suffering a lot
here in Mexico," said Marquez, 32. "He has to listen to the people on
this side."
Biden's first border visit as president comes days after a new policy
aimed at reducing illegal migration has been criticized by migrant
advocates for limiting asylum access.
The two-pronged approach offers legal pathways to the United States for
certain Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans who have U.S.
sponsors, while expelling people of those nationalities back to Mexico
if they attempt to cross the border without permission.
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Mexican migration agents and state police on Saturday patrolled the
concrete banks of the Rio Grande river dividing Ciudad Juarez and El
Paso, as groups of families attempted to clamber through loops of
concertina wire into the United States.
"Duck down," Erlan Garay of Honduras instructed a Colombian woman and
her three children, including an 8-year-old boy clutching a Spiderman
toy.
"They're going to request asylum, they have a chance," he said, adding
that he would look for somewhere else to clandestinely cross, and
shrugging off a drop of blood where the fence pricked his hand.
Marquez said he and his partner, Yalimar Chirinos, 19, do not qualify
for the new legal entry program because they lack a U.S. sponsor.
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![](../images/010923PIX/news_w55.jpg)
Julio Marquez and Yalimar Chirinos,
migrants from Venezuela, display signs near the border between the
United States and Mexico, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, January 7, 2023.
The sign reads "Hello friends, we are from Venezuela, support us
with what comes out from your heart". REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Jan/09/images/ads/current/coppercreek_sda_LUAL_2022.png)
"They're constantly changing the laws, every week," Chirinos said,
wearing a black hoodie and a single pink-and-blue glove to try to
ward off the cold.
The couple has spent five months in Mexico after crossing several
countries and the dangerous Darien jungle between Colombia and
Panama. They sleep at night on the street without a tent or
blankets, hugging one another to stay warm, wary of criminals known
to rob and kidnap migrants.
At one point they crossed undetected into Texas, but after several
days without food or a place to stay, they turned themselves in to
U.S. officials, who sent them back to Mexico.
Marquez said he will stick it out another 15 days hoping to find a
legal route into the United States, before looking for a way back to
Venezuela.
"I don't want to be here anymore," he said, breaking into tears.
"Mr. President, if you're going to deport me, deport me back to my
country, not back here to Mexico."
Others were undeterred, even after their own expulsions to Mexico.
"Send me wherever you want, I'll come back," said Jonathan Tovar,
29, speaking on Friday from behind the fence of Mexico's migration
office in Ciudad Juarez. "I want the president of the United States
to give me and my family a chance."
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Jose Luis Gonzalez; Editing by
William Mallard)
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