MATAMOROS, Mexico (AP) — About two dozen makeshift tents were set on fire and destroyed this week at a migrant camp across the Texas border, witnesses said Friday, a sign of the extreme risk associated with being trapped in Mexico, as the government Biden increasingly relies on that country to host people fleeing poverty and violence.
The fires were lit Wednesday and Thursday in the sprawling camp of about 2,000 people, most from Venezuela, Haiti and Mexico, in Matamoros, a town near Brownsville, Texas. An advocate for migrants said they had been doused in petrol.
“People fled when their tents were burned down,” says Gladys Cañas, who leads the Ayudandoles A Triunfar group. “What they say as part of their testimony is that they were told to leave from there.”
There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries. But about 25 rudimentary shelters made of plastic, tarpaulins, branches and other materials were set on fire in a sparsely populated area of the camp. Many who lived there apparently also lost clothes, documents and other modest possessions.
Margarita, a Mexican woman who was staying at the camp, said on Friday she saw migrants from Venezuela screaming during the previous day’s fire.
“They had their kids with them and a few other things they could get,” Margarita said. She spoke on the condition that her last name would not be published for fears for her safety.
Gangs recently threatened migrants illegally crossing the river border as well as their guides, Margarita said, but the crossings continued.
Criminal groups often prey on migrants in the area, demanding money in exchange for permission to travel through their territory.
However, Juan José Rodríguez, director of the Tamaulipas Institute for Migrants, a government agency that coordinates with the Mexican federal government, said he had no information that a gang was responsible for the fires.
Rodríguez attributed them to a group of migrants and said some 10 tents that had already been abandoned had been set on fire. He added that they apparently lit the fire to vent their frustration over a US government mobile app that assigns people in turn to show up at the border and claim asylum.
Migrants have signed up for 740 slots made available daily on the glitch-ridden app, CBPOne, which allows them to legally enter the US through an official crossing point.
There are far more migrants than available slots, exacerbating tensions in the Mexican border towns that host them, often in detention centers and camps such as the one in Matamoros. Last year, hundreds of migrants blocked a major pedestrian crossing between Tijuana and San Diego until authorities stopped the protest.
In Matamoros, about 200 migrants gathered on the south side of an international bridge on Wednesday evening and stopped all traffic to the US, US Customs and Border Protection officials said. Vehicles were able to cross again after about two hours and pedestrians were allowed to cross after about four hours.
CBP made no mention of fires in the Mexican camp in its statement about the closure of the bridge.
The tent fires in Matamoros follow a March 27 fire that killed 40 men at a detention center for Mexican immigrants in Ciudad Juarez. The fire is believed to have been started by a detained migrant to protest conditions at the facility in the city opposite El Paso, Texas.
The US government is increasingly turning to Mexico as it prepares to end its pandemic-era asylum restrictions, known as Title 42 authority, on May 11. Mexico recently started accepting people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who cross the border irregularly and are returned by the US
The Biden administration is also finalizing a policy of denying asylum to people who travel to U.S. soil through another country, such as Mexico.
___
Associated Press writer Alfredo Peña in Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, contributed to this report.
