“El Chaparral” checkpoint reopened for Ukrainians seeking asylum in the US

On the morning of Wednesday, April 6, the countless foreigners who were camping at the Tijuana Integral Transportation System (SITT) station, which is located near the San Ysidro checkpoint, as well as those who were in the shelter of the Benito Juárez Sports Unit, moved to escorted by the National Guard to various Mexican trucks to a new destination.

For the first time, after a couple of years, the US Customs and Border Protection authorities reopened the border crossing called El Chaparral, in order to give access to Ukrainian migrants who sought refuge, due to the conflict with Russia. The US government reported that they recently received 3,000 applications for asylum.

This happened because the United States authorities sought to avoid an arduous crowding of Europeans between the vicinity of the San Ysidro and Otay gates, because as of yesterday, attention was suspended at these sites, so that only El Chaparral will operate this weekend. Faced with this, people who are in makeshift camps near the crossing points will be relocated to the shelter in the North Zone.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), explained that it will increase the number of personnel who will attend to the multiple requests of foreigners and thus speed up the reception processes of Ukrainians. Likewise, Enrique Lucero Vázquez, head of the Department of Attention to Migrants, stressed that given the above, 578 people will be cared for, since only 100 people could attend per day. Well, the goal is for the situation on the border to normalize in three weeks.

According to the British agency Reuters, CBP registered some 6,400 Russians and 1,000 Ukrainians at the southern border between October 2021 and January 2022. That is an increase of 64% for Russians and 68% for Ukrainians over the same period in 2021.

Last March, several families from Ukraine crossed Mexico to seek refuge from the United States. Therefore, Claudia Pérez, a Mexican migration agent, revealed that they were mostly immigrants of Russian origin, however, more families later arrived from Ukraine.

“They arrive and request their legal stay in Mexico, we offer them hostels but they don't want them, they stay in hotels and move on their own,” said the official.

Likewise, the binational organization Al Otro Lado has been responsible for providing advice and accompaniment to families who arrived in Tijuana.

Jeen Jude, a lawyer for the association, said that they did not question the people who arrived, “we only helped them to prepare their asylum applications and accompany them to the checkpoint.”

Jude confirmed that some families managed to enter the United States to present their cases and request political asylum, although others had to wait because the spaces were saturated and there was still no clear action by the US Government for the humanitarian entry of these people.

At that time, the official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Marcelo Ebrard, reported on his Twitter account that the second Mexican Air Force (FAM) aircraft traveled to Europe to carry 1.5 tons of mats and medicines for refugees in Romania.

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