Activists warn of an increase in deaths of migrants with the militarization of the US border.

Activists in the border city of Tijuana foresee an increase in the deaths of migrants trying to cross from Mexico into the United States undocumented due to the recently announced militarization of the border by the government of US President Joe Biden, they said Monday.

They accused that the 1,500 soldiers that the United States government announced that it will deploy along the border strip as of May 10 will only benefit supremacist groups and human traffickers, who will take advantage of the intention of migrants to cross in any way.

Hugo Castro, founder of the SOS Migrantes Coalition, said that this measure “represents more deaths”, since he assures that they have observed that when the presence of the Border Patrol has increased and the walls in the region have been reinforced, it has led to the migrants move towards the most risky spaces.

“This also generates an increase in assaults and kidnappings in those spaces; The only ones who have been benefiting from this are the racists, some extremist groups in the United States and the 'polleros' (people traffickers), because they increase the quotas and the requests for their services by migrants to try to cross the border”, said.

TITLE 8 IMPLIES GREATER SEVERITY

Several activists offered a press conference on Monday to warn about the possible scenarios that are looming in the face of the culmination of Title 42, a measure adopted by former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021) and continued by his successor Joe Biden to expel migrants with the argument of the COVID pandemic, an emergency declaration that is about to end in the US.

They anticipated an increase in migratory flows, but they also considered that the risks would increase with the new policies that the US government is implementing.

Jose Luis Perez Canchola, a member of the Mexican Academy of Human Rights, told EFE that “it is undoubtedly an aggressive message that puts people who are crossing without documents at greater risk, I believe that, in itself, there is always a threat and there is danger, this is aggravated by militarization”.

For the human rights defender, before using public force, “there must be a humanitarian way out, because it is a migration that is already on the move, that is already in the process of reaching the border and there is no other way but to facilitate and expedite their procedures.

He also warned about the risks that migrants will suffer once the announced Title 8 is implemented -which will imply their immediate deportation-, considering that “ what is coming is more serious, because this law obliges migration agents to open files of illegal entry towards migrants and they can accuse them of committing a crime ”.

For this reason, he stressed, the recommendation that they are making to migrants is that they use the appropriate procedure, which is the electronic application, through the CBP One application, to avoid a complication that could lead them to adverse legal proceedings.