A town with a heart but not many options for migrants

The Rio Grande River in El Paso, Mexico, crossed over from Mexico with Margelis Polo Negrette, a Venezuelan family

The Rio Grande, the thin, slimy, and clay-colored river that ran through downtown el Paso in recent rains, was found through tangles of wildflowers and along concrete banks, a liquid boundary marking the end of the United States. The river was easy to wade across, even for 9-year-old Margelis Polo Negrette, who crossed over from Mexico with her parents, clambered up a sandy rise and headed straight for the uniformed Border Patrol agents.

The mother and daughter put their hair back before they arrived. Placid as churchgoers, the family of three advanced with steady steps into the United States. The early October sky was bruised with rain and a group of tyo accordions was drifting over the water. The immigration was very simple.

The family was Venezuelan, and so they would be allowed to stay. With U.S.- Venezuela relations cold and Mexico banningVenezuelans from returning, there was no simple way to deport them. The parents fled Venezuela after a member of their family was jailed and tortured, they said. They didn’t ask the agents about that. Not yet. They were from Venezuela; it was enough.

What Happens When a Kidnap is Left Behind: The Loss of an innocent Mexican bystander in Matamoros

Editor’s Note: Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” You can follow her on the social networking site. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely her own. You can have an opinion on CNN.

What they were doing, though – moving through an area dominated by cartels and awash in the violence those cartels cause – is something that often costs innocent Mexicans their lives. And indeed, one innocent Mexican bystander was killed in the shootout that accompanied this awful kidnapping.

Authorities say that two of the victims have been found dead, and two survivors – one severely injured – have been located at what appears to be a medical clinic in the border city of Matamoros, US officials told CNN.

So much about this story has yet to be known, but the State Department has a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” warning out for Tamaulipas, “due to crime and kidnapping.” Matamoros lies across the border from the US Rio Grande valley, which is home to nearly five million people every year.

The tragic fates of these victims also spotlights the reality that hundreds of thousands of Americans travel abroad every year for medical care, many of them to Mexico, for everything from root canals to in vitro fertilization to cosmetic procedures, which are often cheaper south of the border. The general criminalization of abortion in the American south has been sending women to Mexico to get safe abortions.

It is not clear how many Americans read the State Department’s travel warnings especially to a country that is a popular tourist destination. It’s easy to blame the victim here. But the four Americans who were kidnapped were doing what a great many other US citizens do every day without incident.

Tamaulipas has an astoundingly high murder rate, and even that is likely underreported. The drug traffickers sometimes disappear people so that they go uncounted, and murder journalists or law enforcement in order to get a body count. There is corruption, and reining in it has become nearly impossible. In Tamaulipas alone, there are thousands of Mexicans who are simply missing.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/opinions/mexico-americans-kidnapped-killed-filipovic/index.html

Are the innocent Americans really fleeing the border? The tragic case of the innocent americans, their families and the lives of those who have lost their passports

At the same time as Americans have turned our eyes toward our fellow citizens and their ordeal, President Joe Biden is said to be considering a return to the Trump administration’s draconian anti-immigrant policies, which would allow for the detention of migrants who entered the US without proper documentation, followed by their swift expulsion.

Even though the substance abuse epidemic on both sides of the border is devastating, a number of Republicans have used the threat of illegal drugs to try and keep migrants out. On one side of the equation are the Mexicans, Salvadorans, Hondurans and other innocent people who have been trapped, on the other side of the equation are the violent gangs at home who are partly funded by American drug dollars and armed with American guns.

The violence that has been sweeping up for Americans is what many of these migrants are fleeing. Many of these migrants, including children, will be returned to the conditions that have now left two Americans dead. It is Mexicans who are most prone to violence from the Mexican drug traffickers in El Salvador and so on. Americans who visit are spared a lot.

It is important that these innocent Americans are brought to justice. But their lives are not more inherently valuable because of their passports. They were along with the millions of people whose homes have turned horrible, and who showed up at America’s borders looking for the same kind of safety we wish for our fellow citizens. It is important for people to realize that they should live and raise their children free from violence.