How confusion around Biden policies birthed a new refugee camp on the U.S. border

2021-05-07T115410Z_3_LYNXMPEH460HU_RTROPTP_4_USA-IMMIGRATION-CAMP-1200×800-1

A red pickup truck pulls up next to a migrant tent encampment in the Mexican city of Tijuana, its bed filled with loaves of bread and clothes. Men, women and children run to meet it.

“A line! Form a line!” someone yells. A woman in a long skirt climbs into the truckbed and begins to preach into a microphone: “You all are hoping to cross into the United States!” she says. “You all are hoping to be blessed! Well, take God’s hand!”

Migrants raise their hands in prayer. Food can be scarce in the encampment, and the line stretches back down the road, past dozens of tents and dirty portable restrooms.

Right up against the popular pedestrian crossing from Mexico to the United States at El Chaparral, a refugee camp has mushroomed in recent months, filled with asylum seekers desperate to cross the still-closed U.S.-Mexico border.