When I see a headline on the national section of the newspaper about a new situation in a country somewhere in the world that could cause people to flee, such as the violence currently escalating in Sudan, I usually make a mental note.
It is likely that I will soon meet someone in Tijuana who has come to ask the United States for protection from those circumstances. How long it takes just depends on how far away the country is geographically and what resources are available to the people in danger.
But there are other situations that we don’t necessarily hear about until asylum seekers are already at our border asking for help. I’ve seen in the border apprehensions data each month that there have been increases in people coming from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, as well as Turkey. But until recently, I didn’t know why.
I spent many hours on the border in recent weeks documenting the end of Title 42, a border policy put in place under the Trump istration that expelled certain nationalities back to Mexico or their home countries without the opportunity to request asylum. I met many asylum seekers from these countries who were waiting in open-air holding areas between the border walls for Border Patrol to process them.
I heard similar stories over and over again from migrants from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador — and they were very much like the stories I’ve heard for years from people fleeing Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Criminal organizations have grown more powerful there since the pandemic, they told me. Extortion, kidnappings and killings have grown far too common.
One man from Colombia told me that a guerrilla group that controlled his area tried to recruit him. He didn’t want to .
“I had the option to stay and die or see a family member die, or leave,” he told me.
He said the corruption that provides impunity to these criminal organizations is spreading throughout Latin America. It doesn’t matter, he said, whether the country has a right-leaning government or a left-leaning government.
“In a few words, everyone wants to be a dictator,” he said.
Asylum seekers from Turkey also quickly filled in the question mark that’s been on my mind since I heard about them coming a year ago. They identified as Kurdish, an ethnic minority group that faces discrimination there. They — like so many others from countries that quiet political opinion, persecute certain ethnic groups or perpetuate violence against people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity — were looking for something that they believed only the United States could provide them. Freedom.
