Two immigrants who were in El Chaparral entered the United States

Two immigrants giving impromptu lessons in El Chaparral are already in the United States. Another one is transit within days.

Their cases are an example of the gradual change in borders without actually being announced. Some immigrants began to enter the United States after having settled in Mexico for several months.

Maribel Alvarado is 37 years old and has three daughters. One of them is in Honduras and the other two, aged 7 and 10, traveled with her from their country to seek asylum in the United States. For three months, they were stranded in this border city due to restrictions imposed by former President Donald Trump.

After waiting 80 days in a refugee camp on the border of El Chaparral, Alvarado and his two daughters finally crossed over to the United States in mid-May.

She is one of three Central American immigrants who created a file A school for children in the camp Of refugees. Evelyn Sanchez and Victoria Rodriguez are other immigrants who have helped give simple lessons to the children of El Chaparral. However, they had to leave there because they had received threats from other camp residents and prevented them from teaching students who went daily to the center. “Yes, the environment has become complicated,” Sanchez said at the time. “It is no longer for us to walk with the children, and they ask us not to teach.”

After taking refuge at the La Casa de Luz shelter in the city, which is located in Playas de Tijuana, two of the three Honduran immigrants-turned-teachers, Alvarado and Sanchez, are now in the United States.

Rodriguez, the third of the teachers is still in Tijuana at Camp El Chaparral, and she will be able to cross into the United States on May 20 with the help of the non-governmental organization Al Otro Side and other groups belonging to the California Welcome Mission. Forcing them to work to honor asylum processes and immigrants entering the United States.

One night before crossing the border into the American Dream, Alvarado says that, like his two daughters, he could not sleep due to emotion. At dawn, as she was preparing for her immigration appointment, she sprinkled the last drops of her perfume, put on a blue suit, and cleaned her hair.

She traveled to Miami last Wednesday, May 13th, where she met her relatives and said that the first thing she would do was rest for a few days, wait for the asylum procedures to begin, and visit the beaches of that city with her daughters. “I am happy because there were a lot of sacrifices in the camp and everything. Sleeping in the street, in the sun, in the cold, someone got the flu, but here we stand,” he said.

Sanchez, 27, crossed the border on May 7 with her husband and two children, the oldest of whom was born in Honduras, and the youngest was born in Mexicali. Sanchez and her children are in Los Angeles and her husband is still in immigration detention.

“I feel we all have the right to immigrate,” Sanchez said. “If we do it out of necessity, the countries should come to an agreement because they are suffering.” “My daughter is Mexican, she learns a lot, to be more human and never forget the place God has brought us to, over there (in the United States) I want to work and study and if I could become an English teacher, I don’t know how, but we will investigate.”

Thanks to advice from Al Otro Lado, it took them nearly a month to enter the United States, the teachers said, after responding to a risk questionnaire they were provided with in order to gain a decent entrance into that country.

Many of the immigrants do not belong to the Trump administration’s stay in Mexico program, but had begun completing the entry process four weeks ago, Irving Mondragon, camp leader of El Chaparral, said.

After President Joe Biden canceled the program that closed the doors to refugees in February of this year, hundreds of Central American immigrants arrived in Tijuana to seek asylum in the United States.

Soraya Vasquez, deputy director of Al Otro Lado in Tijuana, explained that they have conducted a risk survey, to find out the living conditions and risk rates of people living in the camp and determine if they qualify for amnesty. Humanitarian.

“This relates to the different situations and circumstances in which people are,” Vásquez said. We and other organizations are making these requests Parole We achieved great success because they have agreed and accepted many people, especially those with a health problem. They have also considered the situation of living here in Tijuana, and living in the camp, as a risk and this seems to me to do with a change in the position of power in the United States. ”

For Alvarado, President Biden’s cancellation of the stay-in-Mexico program is a light at the end of the tunnel. He commented, “Because suddenly this program arrived to support immigrants, we filled out the papers and forms and waited for the answer and came today, yes I would like others to be able to do that as well.”

Evelyn Sanchez. Evelyn and Maribel Alvarado, two teachers from Chaparral Small School, made it into the United States through the humanitarian admission promoted by the binational organization Al Otro Side.

(Yolanda Morales)

Now Alvarado, Sanchez, and hundreds of other immigrants will be waiting to start their asylum procedures in the United States, where they will live with their relatives rather than under a tent roof and sleep on the floor as they did in the camp.

“The truth is, I feel good, after a long process, it’s tough,” Alvarado said. “This day has arrived and I’m grateful to God, Irving, and I’m very grateful.” “Just as I and my daughters had the opportunity, I hope those in the camp will have the opportunity. I don’t have many words to explain it, but I am very happy and relaxed.”

“Thank God the fight was worth it,” Sanchez added. “I hope from God that this is for the best, thinking about a better future for our children. It can be said, I am happy because the conditions will be better, and at the same time are considered, but I ask God to help others, there are children, there are old people, they are the ones who suffer the most. I hope To have a better pay. “