Sister Maria Tello Claro, the director of Casa del Migrante, explained that the mood at her shelter has turned to sadness and anguish since Trump’s inauguration.
The shelter, designed to accommodate 170 people, currently houses 190 migrants primarily from Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador and Haiti.
Tello observed that many of the residents, including Martino and Alvarado, had been held hostage at some point during their journeys to the border.
“Here it is dangerous because they can be kidnapped. In fact, they are being kidnapped,” Tello said.
But Tello explained that the migrants and asylum seekers she knows have few options. “Where are they going to go? Some of them cannot return to their countries.”
She added that the US’s 90-day pause on foreign aid spending has also limited the shelter’s capacity to address the needs of migrants and asylum seekers.
Other nongovernmental organisations offer support to Casa del Migrante, but their budgets have dried up in the wake of the aid freeze. Casa del Migrante has already lost one of its two volunteer counselling psychologists as a result.
Tello explained that she and her colleagues have had several meetings with other shelters to discuss how to provide support, but they are unsure what to do.
“We go day by day,” Tello said.
Johanna Ovando, 31, is among the asylum seekers stranded at the border. She fled El Salvador with her husband, two children and mother.
She feared her country’s gangs would prey on her eldest son now that he has turned 10, a prime age for recruitment.
El Salvador’s government has responded to gang violence by imposing an iron-fisted security crackdown, resulting in widespread human rights abuses. That only heightened the risks of staying.
But now that Ovando and her family are stuck at the US-Mexico border, she wonders if she made the right decision. In Mexico, she said, her family has faced discrimination, abuse and extortion.
“There is sex trafficking, and one walks with the fear of persecution,” Ovando said. Comparing the situation to El Salvador, she added, “It is the same over there, but it is our country.”
Ovando plans to stay one more month at a shelter in Matamoros. If the asylum process does not resume, she and her family will leave.
“We cannot stay here,” Ovando said. “It’s very insecure.”
For Martino, however, returning is not an option. He feels that going back after all he survived would mean defeat.
“Patience runs out, hope ends and many things must be taken into account,” Martino said. “But calmly, with patience and a lot of faith, we put everything in God’s hands.”
But he acknowledged his fate is also in the US president’s hands, and he is hoping for some indication of what his future holds: “Donald Trump also has to give answers.”