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CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – Along the banks of a muddy Rio Grande, two national guardsmen, carrying long rifles, keep a watchful eye on the border for mostly Central American migrants sneaking into the U.S.
The guardsmen describe their spot as “a strategic location.” Across from them on the U.S. side, they have a clear view of a border wall that casts a shadow on a Border Patrol vehicle, slowly cruising up and down, leaving a trail of dust high enough to reach the tip of a brand-new overpass that seems to loom over Juárez. The guardsmen stand next to three dogs napping in the hot afternoon sun, all huddled under the shade of a skinny tree. The guardsmen asked for anonymity as they’re not authorized to speak publicly.
“Nothing gets beyond us,” said one guardsman, pointing to his partner and the panting dogs. “They’re like guards, effective because they can see people from afar, especially at night, and alert us with their barks.”
For now, this ragtag team at this spot may be good as it gets for the Biden administration’s efforts to halt illegal migration. Under pressure to get control of a crush of migrants streaming to the border, the administration can use all the help it can get from its southern neighbors. Biden administration officials said last week that, in addition to Mexico, it has reached agreements with Guatemala and Honduras to use troops to crack down on migrant smuggling.
Former President Donald Trump did much the same thing with the Mexican government: Striking a deal to have Mexico’s national guard patrol the borders. For all of Trump’s bluster about building a border wall to keep migrants out, the Mexican national guard was one of only two things that proved somewhat effective in slowing down the flow of migration: The other was the global pandemic.
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Neither will prove to be successful in the long term.
“The National Guard is the ad hoc solution, always, to migration enforcement for the United States and Mexico, at least for a short term,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute. “But that doesn’t seem to change the long-term trajectory of people wanting to come to the United States and finding ways of getting in.”
The reemergence of the national guard comes amid the rising numbers in migration, as the U.S. Border Patrol encountered more than 172,000 migrants in March along the southwest border, up from 100,441 in February, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Under the informal agreements, Mexico will maintain about 10,000 troops at its own southern border, and up to 9,000 on the northern border. Guatemala added 1,500 troops along its border with Honduras and several checkpoints. Honduras put 7,000 police and troops along border with Guatemala. Every country shares the goal of stopping migrants, including children, from making the dangerous journey north.
In announcing the agreements, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said “the objective” of the administration “is to make it more difficult to make the journey, and make crossing the border more difficult.”
Additionally, Vice President Kamala Harris plans to visit Mexico and Central America in the coming weeks.
The increased use of soldiers to stop migration has generated a backlash from human rights and migrant advocates, who point to previous examples of abuse, corruption, overall lack of international accountability and increased militarization of the border.
On the U.S. side, Biden issued a proclamation to end a national emergency declaration by Trump, but kept some 3,600 service members, many from the U.S. National Guard, already deployed along the 2,000-mile border.
Unlike the Mexican National Guard, the U.S. military is banned by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 from taking part in domestic enforcement. The troops act as a support system, given tasks like hanging coils of razor wire atop border fences and in ports of entry.
A long history
Biden’s move to press Mexico and Central America for military help echoes similar measures Trump took in 2019 when the administration engaged in a full court press against Mexico, threatening to impose tariffs unless Mexico agreed to send thousands of troops to slow the flow of migrants headed for the U.S. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bowed to Trump’s pressure.
Last month, the Biden administration said it would “loan” Mexico sorely needed coronavirus vaccine as the two countries held talks on border security. Days later, Mexico closed its southern border to nonessential travel, using the pandemic as an excuse.
Both sides have denied there was a quid pro quo. López Obrador defended the use of Mexico’s military, including the national guard, as an effort to protect migrant children. “We’ve never seen trafficking of minors on this scale,” Lopez Obrador said. “To protect children we are going to reinforce the surveillance, the protection, the care on our southern border because it’s to defend human rights.”
The move has unsettled migrant rights advocates on both sides of the border.
“We’re incredibly disappointed to see the U.S. government export deterrence,” said Marisa Garza Limon, Deputy Director of Hope Border Institute. “It doesn’t work here at the southern border and it will only cause more harm in these other countries.”
On one recent day, at a Juárez migrant shelter, two Honduran women fed their fidgety toddlers. One said her name was Tahani Olivares; the second identified herself as Bridgett Johnson. Both said they were thinking twice about returning to Honduras after the Mexican National Guard stopped them as they attempted to cross.
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The Mexican National Guard, working in conjunction with immigration authorities, the military and state and local officials, turned them over to immigration officials, the women said, adding that they were brought to the shelter with order to return to their country of origin within 30 days.
“I’m out of money,” said Olivares. “I’m waiting to see if my relatives (in the U.S.) will send more money.”
Johnson added: “Every so-called authority means paying more money, more abuse, repression, the type I’m running away from.”
Asked if their presence would discourage them from attempting to cross north, all three quickly shook their heads. “No,” Olivares said. “Nothing will.”
“We just need to get some rest tonight,” said Johnson. “We got this far. No one said it would be easy.”
Pastor Rosalio Salas, who runs a network of shelters in northern Mexico, decried the use of the national guard and other security forces as a “a magnet for corruption,” and pointed to long time allegations of human rights abuse.
“They (Mexican National Guard and military) haven’t really yet been fully trained for that role, or been fully prepared for that role,” said Selee.
Last month, a Mexican soldier shot dead a Guatemalan migrant in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas. Mexico’s Secretary of Defense Luis Sandoval said the soldier fired as a result of an “erroneous reaction.”
Slowing the flow
For now, it appears, the flow appears to have slowed down at least in the once busy crossing point between the downtown area of Juárez and El Paso, said a chatty guardsman, estimating a reduction of 70 to 80 percent.
“We’ve pushed them outside to desolate areas, out in the desert,” he said, conceding their efforts only put the migrants and their children in a more dangerous situation. “The desert doesn’t serve as a deterrence. They, women and children, cross in spite of the rattlesnakes, giant spiders, the hot sun. That’s what poverty does to you. The American dream is so alluring that you risk it all.”
The guardsman paused and thanked Biden for the vaccines. This week, Juarez received its first shipment of more than 100,000 doses.
“We want to thank President Biden for his support and we will do what we can to stop the flow of migration,” the guardsman said, next to his partner and the three dogs that rolled in the dirt. He said a group of 18 guardsmen were stretched in their “strategic” locations along a two-mile segment.
Minutes later and just a few yards to the east of the guards and their furry companions, two groups of migrants, some carrying children, quietly waded across a river littered with garbage, and mud, crossed into the United States. Two U.S. Border Patrol vans and their agents awaited them.
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