Update:
1:08 p.m.
Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, who is in charge of volunteer services for migrants, arrived with asylum-seekers at the Brownsville bus station.
“It’s so amazing to see after so long, seeing them suffer for them to be here now,” said Sister Norma Pimentel to KVEO.
12:24 p.m.
Goodwin says the goal for tomorrow is to cross 100 people from Mexico.
12:17 a.m.
Attorneys Jodi Goodwin and Laura Peña say 27 people have crossed successfully into the United States.
11:47 a.m.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official and immigration attorney Jodi Goodwin both confirmed to Border Report the migrants have crossed over into the U.S. KVEO and Border Report is working to figure out where they are.
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Brownsville, Texas (KVEO)—A group of at least 25 asylum-seekers who have been living in a tent encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande for over a year in Matamoros, Mexico, crossed into the United States on Thursday.
The migrants, all part of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program implemented in 2019, crossed at the Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville, Texas with the blessing of the U.S. government.
The Bridge is just blocks from where the encampment is located. Over 1,000 migrants live at the encampment.
Officials with the United Nations were screening all applicants for COVID-19 and sorting those who have lived on the camp the longest to be among the first to cross.
DHS officials said priority would be given to those who have had pending immigration cases the longest.
Some have lived at the camp since July 2019 when the Trump administration implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, known unofficially as the “Remain in Mexico” program, which forced them to wait in Mexico during their asylum proceedings., according to Borderreport.com.
