California-Mexico Border is overwhelmed once, now almost empty

San Ysidro, California – When humanitarian aid workers decided to dismantle detailed tent installations planted against the border wall, they did not see immigrants for a month.

A year ago, when the historic number of immigrants arrived at the border, the American Friends, the Human Rights Organization provided by a national Quaker, came to the aid of the American Friends Service Committee. Finally, the group received enough donations to sew three canopes that stored food, clothing and medical equipment.

However, immigrant transitions almost stopped by bringing a striking change to the landscape in California’s south.

The shelters whose migrants were once closed are closed, the temporary camps that migrants expect to process are barren, and the non -profit -free organizations began to change their services to settled immigrants who were deported in the USA or immigrants trapped in southern Mexico.

Meanwhile, with the help of 750 US military troops, the border patrol was strengthened by the concertina wire of the six -mile border wall.

On a charity station, which was erected by the Service Committee a few miles west of the San Ysidro border crossing, there was mostly an empty shadow. Three aid workers wearing blue surgical gloves packed the boxes labeled “Children/Hydration”, “Tea and Hot Coco” and “Little Cossack”. Now they didn’t need them.

According to the agency, the border patrol agents in the San Diego industry make about 30 to 40 arrests a day. This is more than 1,200 per day during the height of immigrant arrival in April.

Adriana Jasso, who coordinated the US-Mexico program for the Service Committee, remembered the assistance efforts of the hectic time and the group. “We’ve taken the level of humanitarian aid for the first time,” Jasso said.

But these days, “This is the closure of an experience – for now. Because life can be unpredictable.” He said.

In May 2023, the Biden administration’s policy ended in a pandemi period in which immigrants’ right to asylum was rejected and quickly returned to Mexico. On the way to the policy change, the immigrants landed from thousands of borders.

The two parallel fences constitute most of the border barrier near San Diego. The asylum seekers began to scale the closest fences to Mexico to the border patrol agents that would tell them to wait between the two fences for processing themselves.

The days were usually spent before returning to the area known as whiskey 8. In the meantime, Jasso and his colleagues filled the hot instant soup, fresh fruit and backpacks from the nests in the fence.

Jasso saw the latest immigrants on February 15-a group of 20 men from India and China.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) volunteer Emma Starkey is gathering in an area called Whiskey 8 in San Ysidro. “About a month has passed since we saw anyone,” Starkey said about the immigrants.

Then he came to a storm, took off two canopes. Jasso and his team took it as a sign to destroy the rest. The smell of the Kontamine Tijuana River wandered in the morning atmosphere while Jasso pulled a plastic shelf unit from the shadow.

In the shadow, one of the last elements remaining was a minnie mouse filled with dirty gray -shaded bubble pink shoes. A young girl handed her to Jasso through the fence.

“The border patrol refused to let him take it, Jas Jasso said. “I promised him that I would take care of him and promised someone would love him like he did.”

Like Jasso’s collection in Whiskey 8, Border Patrol organized a news conference a few miles away.

In the east of the San Ysidro border crossing on the border wall, a border patrol served as a floor to show the partnership between the internal security and defense departments, a green humvee, a green humvee.

A pair of US soldiers are looking at Tijuana standing behind the border wall with the new concertina wire along the US and Mexican border near San Ysidro.

The barrier was opened and the border patrol, maritime and army officials showed journalists how both fences were now covered in the concertina wire.

Tijuana, where construction workers built a highway raised against the wall that separates Mexico from the USA, can be heard loud music.

The troops created a “obstacle design ında by pointing to the top of the fence, the metal bars towards Mexico and adding more wire on it.

Jeffrey Stalnaker, the chief patrol agent of the San Diego industry, said that the additional wire established since the arrival of the troops on January 23 has slowed down the illegal entrances.

Stalnaker said that Federal prosecutors in San Diego have accepted more than 1,000 criminal cases for this financial year. And Mexico following Trump’s tariff threats 10,000 National Guard Union to the northern border. Stalnaker said that these troops now meet with US agents several times a week and made synchronous patrols on their sides of the border.

Construction workers in Tijuana are working on the border wall with the new concertina wire on the US and Mexican border near San Ysidro.

“What we see behind us today is the result of a real government effort from sailors who extend the miles of concertina for miles during the border infrastructure to the soldiers who manage our scope trucks and distant video surveillance cameras,” he said.

Only border patrol agents may arrest immigrants entering the country illegally, but Stalnaker said that the use of military personnel to detect immigrants has released more time in this field.

Last April, San Diego was the highest area along the border for those who came for the first time for the first time for decades. Stalnaker, compared to the same period last year, said there was a 70% drop in immigrant arrests in this financial year.

“It is insufficient to say that there is a dramatic change,” he said.

However, Stalker said that he expects an increase in the attempts of the Border Patrol in his attempts to enter the immigrants with a boat in the attempts to enter California with a boat.

Further East, Jacumba Hot Springs Once Additional Outdoor Camps SiteHundreds of immigrants slept on plastic linoleum (or lucky tents) and gathered around the campfire fed with a brush to stay warm.

Sam Schultz is approaching Moon Camp where immigrants will relax and camping after crossing the US/Mexican border near the town of Jacumba Hot Springs without any company. “If you don’t see anyone, it’s hard to continue, Sch Schultz said, trying to continue to bring food and water to the immigrants in the region.

A tank full of water for immigrants, used to weigh tents, tires and sandbags to sit, the only thing staying in Moon Camp near the Jacumba Hot Springs town without any company.

Sam Schultz, a retired international aid worker who lived near Jacumba for nine years, once made daily water, hot meals and blankets for immigrants there. When the camps appeared a few miles away from his house, he felt compelled to help.

Once upon a time, the Old Highway 80 tents covering a camping area outside of 80 went. Schultz’s son recently pulled them out because he was no longer needed.

Schultz is still visiting three sites several times a week to check if the water left outside needs to be renewed for immigrants.

“The water was not touched,” he said.

Humanitarian organizations that assisted judicial aid and immigrants removed their operations away from the border.

The immigrant advocates in Los Angeles, headquartered in Los Angeles, served by the Governor of Texas to the border migrants from the border; The group also provided legal assistance to those waiting in Tijuana for appointments with customs and border protection. After the opening, President Trump quickly canceled the existing appointments and ended the use of a telephone application used by Biden management to plan them.

Lindsay Toczylowski, the founding partner and CEO of the Law Center, said the arrests of immigration agents increased around Los Angeles, the organization began to focus on deporting immigrants recently.

Oscar Mendoza, on the right, Movimento Juventug in Tijuana, his daughters Melina and Dolores in the 2000 shelter, take off his tent with a 12 -year -old Dolores. Mendoza and his family fled from Moelos from Mexico from the border due to all the violence in which his family was threatened.

Al Oto Lado General Manager Erika Pinheiro said that most of those who were deported to Mexico were sent further in the south, so there were not many people stuck in Tijuana. He said that the organization brought staff to Mexico City and Tapachula, who limits Guatemala.

Pinheiro said that the San Ysidro-based organization scaled a project that has recently supported immigrants who did not speak Spanish in Mexico.

The American Friends Service Committee has also changed its efforts to focus on presenting “know your rights” presentations in schools, churches and community centers.

However, when Whiskey 8 returned to 8, Jasso said the organization will continue to offer direct humanitarian aid to the advancing immigrants.

A border patrol agent is riding a building near a area called Whiskey 8, where immigrants are used to buy water and food in San Ysidro, along the US/Mexican border wall.

He remembered that he had learned three immigrants. He died at the beginning of this month Otay Mountain in its wild nature, after calling for help during a storm that brings freezing temperatures to the hard terrain.

When immigrants can no longer look for legal ways of entering the United States with the asylum process, defenders predict that they will start to risk their lives by trying to illegally enter through more distant and dangerous land. Those who desperate enough can even try to jump to the entire newly established concertina wire.