McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — Hundreds of migrants have been taken to shelters and other facilities in northern Mexico by Mexican officials who are urging them not to stay in unprotected tent encampments on the Rio Grande during a brutal bitter cold hitting the region.
About 200 asylum-seekers, mostly women and children, loaded onto buses sent by Mexican officials on Sunday and Monday and were taken to a former hospital facility in Matamoros, Mexico, a local pastor told Border Report on Tuesday.
The federally-run hospital facility is guarded and has tents lined in a parking lot and offers hot meals and supplies to the migrants. An estimated 1,000 migrants are currently staying in rows of tents at the facility, which opened in the fall.
Only about 45 migrants, mostly men, stayed overnight Monday at the tent encampment along the river, Pastor Abraham Barberi said.
He said he visited the migrants until about 10 p.m. on Monday as temperatures dipped into the 20s in what is normally a subtropical environment.
“It’s cold!” said Barberi who runs a church in Matamoros. He said he offered to open its doors to his congregates and to the migrants but he said nobody wanted to take him up on the offer.
“They didn’t want to leave because they wanted to stay behind and protect their property,” he said.
Those who got on the buses took only the clothes on their backs to the hospital complex, which is about a 10-minute drive south of the river, he said.
Other shelters also expanded their capacity and the local government in Matamoros turned a gym and swimming pool complex into a facility for the migrants, which can hold 400 people, Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities Rio Grande Valley, told Border Report.
She said some of the migrants from the hospital facility moved to the gymnasium for a more protected environment out of the cold and wind.
And another shelter also expanded its capacity in Matamoros.
“The goal was to move as many who wanted to be in a more protected space,” Pimentel said.
About 55 miles west in the border town of Reynosa, Mexico, the migrant shelter Senda Vida also expanded its capacity and was taking in as many asylum-seekers who wanted to get in from the cold, she said.
In addition, local nonprofits were working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to limit the number of asylum-seekers waiting on international bridges and urging them to seek shelter throughout the cold spell. The bridge overpasses are colder than other areas because winds pass underneath and ice can even accumulate on them.
Temperatures Tuesday night are again expected to get into the 20s, but warmer weather, into the 50s, is forecast for Wednesday and Thursday.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.
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