'Psychological torture': These Venezuelan migrants were among final expulsions under Title 42
NOGALES, SONORA, Mexico − The Virgin of Guadalupe watched over a boy at the front of a church.
The framed picture of the patron saint of Mexico hung above the altar at the San Juan Bosco migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora. The young migrant boy wore a bright blue Sonic the Hedgehog shirt and clutched a phone as he faced a group of asylum-seekers.
More than 25 migrants, many of them from Venezuela, sat in the worn green cloth chairs of the church as they called loved ones and rifled through their belongings in creased government-issued plastic bags.
A handful of expelled asylum-seekers had been dropped off at the shelter Thursday afternoon, only a few hours before Title 42 would lift.
In one hour, the U.S. border restriction that had stranded the congregation of migrants and imperiled thousands more would be gone.
Many of the people sitting in the church were among the final expulsions of the Title 42 era.
For more than three years, the restriction was used to rapidly expel migrants more than 2.8 million times. Title 42 officially ended at 11:59 p.m. EDT Thursday.
The expiration of the public health order was received with little fanfare and mostly empty ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. There was no mass influx of migrants rushing the country’s southern border, as many Arizona officials had feared.
The lasting effects of the policy’s demise may not be felt until the days and weeks to come.
Steps away from the boy, three Venezuelan women sat together as they rested their arms on one another’s chairs. The women wore solemn expressions as they recounted the traumatic journey that had brought them together.
The women had been expelled into Mexico on Wednesday morning after spending five days in immigration detention in the U.S., where they said they experienced “inhumane” conditions. They had tried to cross into the U.S. through Matamoros, Mexico, to present themselves to Border Patrol agents and request asylum.
“It is not only what happened in immigration, but also what we have been dragging from Venezuela,” said Waleska Araujo, one of the three women.
“We have been through more than four, five countries receiving mistreatment, even from our same neighbors.”
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'Psychological torture': Women detail 'inhumane' detention conditions
The women were separated from their families before being expelled through Nogales. Araujo was separated from her mother, brothers and cousins after they were apprehended by agents, she said.
The women aren’t alone.
Numerous migrants, many of them from Venezuela, have recently reported being separated from their partners and children. Oftentimes, officials are separating them because they aren’t married or because their children aren’t biologically theirs, despite their having raised them.
The separations stem from the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which aims to document and prevent incidences of sexual misconduct in detention facilities, according to Chelsea Sachau, managing attorney of the Border Action Team at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.
The women were subjected to “freezing conditions” in the detention center where they were held, they said. The women repeatedly clamored for the guards to turn the cold air down, only for the guards to threaten to turn it up if they screamed, the women said.
“They said that if we made noise they would turn the air up higher,” Araujo said.
The first night Araujo was detained, she said, officials made her sleep on the ground outside for the entire night as they waited for the bus to take them to the detention facility. She was given only a thermal blanket for warmth.
The women were handcuffed by their hands, waist and feet for more than 15 hours while they were taken by bus and plane to Nogales, they estimate.
“We also have rights, and that was a type of psychological torture,” said Daileska Giovanna Vaquero Escalona, another one of the Venezuelan women.
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A detention guard forced Escalona to throw away the shirt she was wearing, which had a picture of the U.S. flag, she said. A man had given Escalona the shirt as she was passing through Mexico.
“I couldn’t ask (the guard) why because they may have gotten upset, or something would have happened to me,” Escalona said.
The women had traversed the Darién Gap on their way to the border. The Darién is one of the world’s most dangerous immigration routes; it connects Panama and Colombia, and migrants must walk the treacherous path of jungle and mountains, facing robbers, hunger, deadly animals and illness.
The women witnessed a pair of Haitian migrants drown in a river while they passed through the jungle. Other women in a group near them were robbed and raped, they said.
The women preferred the perilous trek to their experience in immigration detention, they said.
“We prefer that before what happened in immigration,” Araujo said. “We prefer that because at least one has control.”
Venezuelan migrants await appointments after Title 42's sunset
Wilmer Rafael Carson Castillo sat for an appointment eight months in the making.
Castillo sat on a yellow metal bench covered with chipping paint and drenched in sunlight steps away from the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry in Nogales, Arizona.
Castillo sat next to three other Venezuelan migrants who were waiting for their scheduled appointment through U.S. Customs and Border Protection's CBP One app. The four migrants would be some of the first people to be processed for an asylum appointment after the lifting of Title 42.
National policy gears were shifting, and the group would soon be subject to new rules and processes.
But for now, they waited.
“I feel happy and content because I’m going to be with my family,” Castillo said. “The experience is very difficult, but you have to fight it; you have to fight for the well-being of the family.”
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Castillo crossed the border without authorization in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, after being in the city for roughly three months. Castillo, his wife and his two children, 7 and 9 years old, were detained by Border Patrol before Castillo was separated from his family and expelled in Tijuana, he said.
His wife and children were paroled into the country.
Castillo stayed in Tijuana for about 20 days before he was able to book a CBP One appointment in Nogales for Friday. Castillo and his friend were traveling in a large group after they crossed the Darién Gap.
It took Castillo nine days to cross the Darién.
“If you get sick there, you stay, because how do you get out of there?” Castillo said.
“Suddenly you get out of the jungle. Well, the other jungle is Mexico.”
Venezuelan migrants have said that they prefer the deadly Darién Gap to traveling through Mexico, where they are often robbed, assaulted or in danger of being kidnapped. Castillo and his fellow traveler were now the only ones from the group who had not made it into the U.S. yet, he said.
As he waited for his time slot, Castillo urged fellow migrants to be patient and apply for an appointment through the CBP One app.
“We’re happy because we got the appointment, and I hope that God gives us the pass over there,” Castillo said.
As Castillo finished speaking, he sat back down on the sun-bathed bench. The group of friends chatted and laughed as the minutes trickled by until their appointment.
Title 42 was over. Their path to asylum was just beginning.
Have a news tip or story idea about the border and its communities? Contact the reporter at josecastaneda@arizonarepublic.com or connect with him on Twitter @joseicastaneda.