TIJUANA, Mexico—The mayor of Tijuana, Juan Manuel Gastélum, said the Mexican border city is bearing a $25,000 per diem cost to house and feed the burgeoning number of Central American migrants that have arrived.
“According to the last numbers, we’re approximately either near 7,000 or just past 7,000 people here in Tijuana,” Gastélum told The Epoch Times on Nov. 30.
“We’re on the last, the last, we’re just hanging in there,” he said, about being able to sustain the cost. “I gave the federal government two or three days more to come and solve the problem.”
However, Gastélum said he doesn’t have a solution if the federal government doesn’t step up. “Everyday, God gives us a chance to do better things. We’re hoping for the best.”
The mayor said he’s not getting any pressure from the United States to hold the migrants back from crossing the border. But, he said, “I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t let them go” after helping escort them up through Mexico.
On Nov. 25, as more than 1,000 migrants rushed to try to break through the fences to the United States, both municipal and federal riot police in Tijuana attempted to stop them. About 75 percent of the migrants are male.
Central Americans, in general, are only granted asylum by a federal immigration judge in 9 percent of cases that pass an initial “credible fear” screening at the border. But with 89 percent passing the initial screening, it’s seen as a way to get into the United States.
“All of a sudden, foreigners are putting us in a breaking point with the good relations we have with the United States,” Gastélum said. “This is a security, a national-security business. Why? We don’t know who they are. Do you know that we don’t know who they are? We don’t have a registry. We don’t know who came in.”
“Aren’t they law-abiding citizens who’ve been suffering mistreatment from the country they came from?” Gastélum said. “I mean it’s not very fair for us as Tijuana people. And it’s not fair for them—we don’t know who they are.
“This is a national-security matter for us Mexicans.
“Our main issue is, what are we doing here in Mexico to solve this problem? We have to solve this matter, this issue, because they’re humans. Either they go across the border, either they stay in Mexico, either they go back home, whatever, but we have to solve it.”
Gastélum pleaded for the migrants to abide by the law.
“If they want to cross the border, go ahead, it’s fine, just register yourself with the U.S. authorities, prove your case, go ahead. Not in the way they’re doing it,“ he said. ”I’m very worried that this will get out of control.”
