Margarita Piña couldn’t disguise her emotion as she waited to greet her son, whom she hadn’t seen since he left residence two years in the past in the course of the pandemic to hunt a greater future within the U.S.

“It’s very arduous as a result of we don’t know what they’re struggling over there,” Piña stated.

Understanding their assembly can be restricted to solely 5 minutes, Piña stated she would benefit from the restricted time to inform him “that we nonetheless love you very a lot.”

It was the tenth version of the “Hugs, not partitions” occasion, which was organized by humanitarian teams close to the Casa de Adobe Museum within the border metropolis of Ciudad Juárez, which sprawls throughout the border from El Paso, Texas.

Not like at earlier reunions, a robust guard of U.S. officers was current on the occasion, which got here simply days earlier than Washington will carry Title 42 asylum guidelines imposed for the pandemic that allowed the U.S. to expel greater than 2.8 million migrants since March 2020.

The tip to the supply Thursday is predicted to encourage a surge of migrants towards the border, and U.S. authorities have beefed up safety, together with stringing barbed wire fencing. The federal government has stated 1,500 troops will likely be despatched to El Paso, along with 2,500 Nationwide Guardsmen already on the border.

“Now we have by no means had a border as militarized as at this time,” stated Fernando García, head of the Community in Protection of the Rights of Migrants.

“There’s a battle in opposition to migrants, refugees, in opposition to us border crossers,” he added.