A group of about 140 migrants were suddenly displaced Monday morning from a church in Matamoros, leaving the Mexican city temporarily with only three small migrant shelters as more continue arriving.
Danna, a migrant mother with three children, was one of the families dislodged by the pastor at the Viento Recio church in Matamoros. She shared videos with The Monitor showing the large disbanded group in an empty lot with their belongings piled up nearby.
Differing versions about the reason emerged.
According to Danna, who has been in the shelter for the last two months, a conflict between some migrants and the pastor’s wife led to some forced departures Sunday night. The next morning everyone was asked to leave.
Enrique Maciel, the state’s regional delegate of the Tamaulipan Institute for Migrants, or ITM, spoke to the pastor of the church who said the displacement was brought on due to health concerns.
“There were some COVID-19 outbreaks that have been redirected to the public health office,” Maciel said. The two migrants with the virus are under quarantine.
Maciel said there are plans to reopen the church’s shelter when the outbreak is contained.
Once they reopen, the pastor told Maciel he wants to create a commission with the migrant families to help coordinate legal immigration assistance with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration, or OIM.
SHELTERS UNDER STRESS
The church, Viento Recio, opened as a migrant shelter in response to the growing number of migrants bottlenecked in Mexico, due to a federal public health code expelling asylum seekers back from the U.S.
Currently, there are four migrant shelters.
Viento Recio housed about 140 migrants up until Monday. Although Casa Paz has a capacity of 40, they had 80. Dulce Refugio, another church turned shelter after the migrant camp shut down at the start of the year, was above capacity Monday with 240 migrants.
Matamoros’ oldest formal migrant shelter, Casa del Migrante, had about 200 migrants Monday night. Their capacity is up to 240.
About 20 migrants dislodged from the church were heading to Casa del Migrante by the evening. More, particularly deported Mexicans, were expected to arrive, too.
Viento Recio opened upon request of the state and the growing need. “Viento Recio reached to the point of sheltering 300 people when they had a capacity of 150,” Maciel said.
Casa del Migrante’s director, Juan Antonio Sierra Vargas, said churches, though well intentioned, struggle to create the proper structures needed to run shelters capable of providing all necessary services.
Sierra Vargas said he noticed an increase in migrants arriving to Matamoros in February when the Trump-era program, the Migrant Protection Protocols, ended and the camp near the international bridge filled with migrants under MPP was shut down.
RESOURCES LIMITED
At their peak, Casa del Migrante held up to 370 migrants. A COVID-19 outbreak caused the state’s health department to step in and reduce their capacity to about 240, Sierra Vargas said.
Vaccines, tests and treatment remain inaccessible to the shelter.
“We don’t have anyone helping us,” Sierra Vargas said. “We don’t have the support from the government. The city doesn’t give us anything. The state doesn’t have resources, and the federal government has so many problems that they hardly look at us.”
Many of the people the shelter serves are repatriated Mexicans from the U.S. who are mostly vaccinated, but those arriving from the south are typically not vaccinated and range from the very young to the elderly.
Due to the outbreak and the shelter’s crucial services, migrants arriving at the shelter are required to obtain a negative COVID-19 test. Sierra Vargas said the Global Response Management, a nonprofit organization, offers to do them for free.
Aside from public health concerns, shelters housing hundreds a day require vast resources to provide food and shelter on a daily basis.
“To run a migrant shelter you have to have a kitchen, restrooms, washrooms for men and women, beds, medical services, telephone access,” Sierra Vargas explained. “It’s a whole structure that took us more than 30 years to develop and we’re still lacking.”
Sierra Vargas said they could not provide shelter to all the migrants displaced Monday, due to their limited capacity and budget.
“To have 200 people means you’re going to be giving 600 food plates,” he explained.
On a typical day, Sierra Vargas said they use about a crate of 360 eggs in the morning and 10 kilos beans. For lunch, they cook two boxes full of chicken — shredding the meat to yield more servings — and cook about 8 kilos of rice and 10 more kilos of beans. For dinner, up to 15 packages of sausages are cooked with eggs, and beans. Everything has a bread or tortilla serving along with a beverage.
“Who gives us that? Nobody, but we need to do it,” Sierra Vargas said, “because the people are not at fault.”
Danna, the displaced mother of three, said the remaining members of the group who did not go to Casa del Migrante found shelter with some Matamoros residents who took them in. She and her children were ultimately taken back in by Viento Recios.
