Gustavo Solis

The Desert Sun

Mengue Miere Justine had $20 when she left her native Cameroon and boarded a boat set for Brazil.

In South America, Justine saved $1,200 working as a meat packer near the coast before embarking on a four-month journey involving her hiking through Colombian jungles, begging on Nicaraguan street corners and sleeping in Mexican migrant shelters.

“The journey was very painful,” she said from the border town of Mexicali. “It’s not easy, but I know that Americans are good people who can give us opportunities to have a better life.”

Justine, 34, left Cameroon because she is gay. Laws in the West African country call for a five-year prison sentence for sleeping with her girlfriend. Gay Cameroonians are insulted, beaten, imprisoned and even killed for being who they are, she said.

When someone in her home town of Yaoundé found out Justine was gay, he threatened to kill her.

“In my country, you have to lie,” she said. “Sometimes you have to have a boyfriend to show that you are normal. It’s not you. In the United States I know that I can live and be who I am.”

She is one of about 200 migrants from African countries, and Haiti, to arrive in Mexicali in September and one of nearly 5,000 to arrive in Mexico so far this year. In fact, Mexico detained more African migrants in the first seven months of 2016 than they did in the last four years combined. Already, this year's number of 4,900 migrants detained is more than double last year's total of 2,000, according to statistics from the Mexican government.

Once detained, the migrants can plead their case to the U.S., hoping to be allowed entry under asylum. The number of Africans granted asylum in the U.S. since 2010 has grown at a faster rate than those from any other region of the world.

The international trend has local impact on Mexico's border towns. In Mexicali, where migrant shelters were once mostly occupied by deported Mexicans and Central American migrants heading north, shelters are now filling with African asylum-seekers. And more are coming.

Cramped quarters

In one Mexicali shelter built with 60 beds nearly twice as many men sleep in the facility on worn out mattresses and used blankets spread side-by-side on a concrete floor.

“We are at a critical point in Mexicali and Tijuana,” said Monica Oropeza, who works at Albergue del Desierto, the shelter where Justine is staying. “The shelters are at maximum capacity and more migrants are coming.”

She and volunteers from another shelter, Grupo de Ayuda Para el Migrante, are asking for clothing, blankets and food, as well as financial support from the local government. In the last month Mexicali's residents have stepped up by donating clothes and city officials have met with local shelters to try to coordinate a response. But shelters need more resources, volunteers said.

Migrants from African countries began arriving in Tijuana in May, but the city has become so saturated with migrants that many are leaving the Mexican border town, just south of San Diego, and heading eastward to Mexicali. Migrants say Mexicali offers more room and shorter wait times to request asylum to U.S. immigration authorities.

Justine, the refugee from Cameroon, arrived in Mexicali from Tijuana on Sept. 13. She was told by other migrants in Tijuana that they may have to wait until October to see immigration officials. In Mexicali, she expects to wait one week.

News of Mexicali as a faster and more comfortable way to get across the border is spreading through word of mouth. Migrants communicate by phones and those in Tijuana are telling others heading north to go straight to Mexicali.

Last month, Mexican Immigration authorities issued 424 transit visas that allow migrants to cross the country from Guatemala to the U.S. Based on what shelter volunteers in Mexicali are hearing from colleagues in southern Mexico, where the visas are issued, they expect the number to increase throughout the fall.

But nobody is sure why migrants are going to the Mexican state of Baja California, where Mexicali is the capital, instead of border crossings in Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas.

“Who told them to come through Baja California?” Oropeza said. “Our border is very big.”

Escaping hardship

Most of the migrants in Mexicali are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A half dozen interviewed by the Desert Sun said they fled their country because there aren’t enough jobs and the few jobs available don’t pay enough to support a family.

There is also fear of a looming civil war. The country has not had a peaceful transition of power since 1960. Just this week, 44 people were killed in a confrontation between police and anti-government protesters, who accuse the Congo's president of plotting to stay in power after his term ends in December by delaying elections.

Also this week, the main opposition party's headquarters was burned down, according to reports from Human Rights Watch.

Charles Etienne, 37, decided to flee to the U.S. instead of Europe because of anti-immigrant sentiment in that part of the world.

“I thought America would be able to give me a better opportunity than Europe,” he said in Spanish. “In America, there are a lot of places where they treat black people well. If you see the news, a lot of people are experiencing uncertainty in Europe. That’s why I came here.”

Etienne worked in construction in the Congo. It took him four months to get from Brazil to Mexico. He speaks French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Mexico has seen a dramatic increase of migrants from Africa since 2011. That year, 280 migrants from African countries, most from Eritrea, were detained by immigration authorities. In 2015, more than 2,000 migrants, the majority coming from Ghana and Somalia, were detained. In the first seven months of this year the number has skyrocketed to 4,900, almost entirely from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

U.S. and Mexican immigration authorities have also seen a surge of Haitian migrants at the southern border. So far this fiscal year, the U.S. has apprehended more Haitian migrants than they did the previous two combined, according to U.S. Customs and Immigration Services.

But according to migrants and shelters in Mexicali, Haitians are not coming from the Caribbean. Many of them left Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and relocated to Venezuela and Brazil. Economic and social conditions in both of those South American countries are prompting Haitian migrants to relocate again, this time to the U.S.

Brazil is experiencing its worst recession in decades. The country has 22 of the 50 most violent cities in the world based on homicide rates, according to a report from the Center for Public Security And Criminal Justice, which is based in Mexico City.

Meanwhile, the economic crisis in Venezuela has gotten so dire that hospitals are asking patients to pay for their own gauze and syringes, and Venezuelans cross the border to Colombia to buy milk and bread. Part of the economic decline is due to the country's dependence on oil, which accounts for half the government's revenues.

“A lot of people from Haiti went to Brazil to find work,” said Emilio Louil, who arrived to Mexicali in September. “I was there a year, but half of my money went to pay the rent. I could not earn enough to live and send money home so I had to leave."

Louil, 31, said Haiti hasn’t recovered from the earthquake. People can’t find jobs and those who can don’t earn enough money to make a living.

Louil spent a year in Brazil working construction, but it was not enough to support his three sons back in Haiti. He met dozens of Haitians while traveling to the United States. Most of them lived in Venezuela and all of them are heading to the United States, he said.

“I don’t want my sons to go through what I am going through,” he said. “That’s why I want to go to the United States.”

Crossing the border

The influx of asylum-seeking migrants has created a morning ritual in Mexicali. At 8 a.m., dozens wait outside at a port of entry for U.S. immigration officials to call their number.

From there, the intensity of the screening process depends on whether the migrant is an "affirmative" or "defensive" asylum-seeker.

In affirmative asylum cases, immigrants who are not in the process of being deported can apply with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The six-step process, for those who enter the country legally or illegally, involves filing a formal application, several interviews, finger printing and background checks.

Defensive asylum applies to people already in the deportation process. The migrants must pass what is known as a “credible fear” interview and, if credible fear is established, next comes a courtroom-like hearing with an immigration judge to plead their case.

All asylum-seekers must demonstrate that they face persecution based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, social class or political ideology back home. Migrants coming to the U.S. to earn higher paying jobs to support their families are unlikely to qualify, according to immigration experts.

It is unclear how many of the thousands of African asylum-seekers coming through Mexico this year will be approved to enter the U.S. Between 2005 and 2014, the most recent year asylum data is available through the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. granted asylum to 54,000 people from African countries, accounting for 40 percent of all asylum cases granted during that time frame.

Those granted asylum are eligible to receive services such as medical assistance, employment preparation, job placement and English classes from the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Those who do not receive asylum will likely be deported to their country of origin and return to everything they fled from.

If allowed to stay, Justine hopes to get a job - it doesn't matter what - and save enough money to get an education so that she can get a better job. If and when her legal status is sorted, she wants to petition to have her girlfriend and child join her in the U.S.

That is the only way Justine wants to be reunited with her family. She does not want them to go through what she endured on her journey through Brazil, Central America, and Mexico.

“People do very bad things that I cannot talk of because of the shame,” she said.

Immigration Reporter Gustavo Solis can be reached at 760 778 6443 or by email at gustavo.solis@desertsun.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @journogoose.