Will TJ migrants move to La Mesa before tourists come?

Racial brawls, high insecurity, chickenpox outbreak, and even child sexual abuse are piling up within the migrant camp at El Chaparral-San Ysidro port of entry. On June 29 the security and civil protection secretary of Tijuana informed that sexual abuses of minors have been detected but migrants haven’t filed any criminal complaint in the state prosecutors office.

“With help of drone patrolling we have confirmed, as well, the sale and consumption of drugs and other illegal activity in federal areas where we have no jurisdiction to take action,” Pedro Cruz Camarena, the security and civil protection secretary, said.

Tijuana’s Mayor Karla Ruiz noted that despite migrants having spoken up with authorities about sexual abuses within the camp, they have no will to file any criminal complaints due to fear or other situations. “When we take them to the prosecutor's office they don’t want to start the procedure, so that limits us. If there’s no complaint we can’t take any action.”

Last week tension between groups of Central Americans and Haitians reached its peak when, according to Haitians, 150 Hondurans broke into their tents. “Saturday night they beat us with sticks – even women – ripped our tents, and told us that all black people will have to leave the camp. They took our phones and the money we had.”

The Honduran version says that Haitians are pretending to live in the camp to receive food or humanitarian aid and have initiated brawls and have harassed women. “The Haitians just come to start up fights and encourage chaos in the camp. There’s just 10 of them living here, and the rest live downtown; they all pay rents there.”

On Monday, June 28 the one in charge of human rights at the federal ministry of the interior, Alejandro Encinas Rodriguez, said due to the upcoming withdraw of the tourist restrictions on July 21, the migrant camp at El Chaparral will be relocated.

The next day, alleged activists unknown by the migrant community showed up at the camp offering a shelter of 3000-person capacity in La Mesa, four miles from the border. Migrants showed distrust, “If we leave from here our cause will have failed, we should stay here until they open the tourism maybe they delay it one month more, we’ll have more chance here.”

On top of this crisis, a chickenpox outbreak was detected by the state public health department. 585 vaccines were given to children. According to the health department secretary, Alonso Perez Rico, what they’re really worried about is an outbreak of tuberculosis, which is endemic in Baja and which migrants have no immunity to.

“It’s more dangerous for migrants to get infected by us (Tijuana citizens) than the other way around. About chickenpox, none of them know what vaccines they have already so that’s a big problem. We are monitoring the camp to act if we detect any adult with chickenpox because it can dangerous for them”.

For now, migrants are staying in El Chaparral until the border reopens to tourists again, but hoping that the date could be put off one more month, which will give them more time to get responses to their asylum requests.