Despite the ever-souring relations between Mexico and the Trump administration, both the Mexican government and Red Cross Mexico have come to the aid the besieged citizens of Texas’ Gulf Coast, a region ravaged by Hurricane Harvey since it made landfall last Friday in Corpus Christi.
Meanwhile, for many of the affected area’s population of Mexican immigrants – some legal, some not – displacement and upheaval by flooding is compounded by anxiety and uncertainty as to how they’ll be treated by authorities while seeking assistance.
Wednesday, the Mexican Red Cross sent 33 volunteers from Mexico City to Houston, where they’ll provide aid to flood victims at shelters around the city for 20 days, after which a team of fresh volunteers will relieve them.
The Red Cross aid workers arrived shortly after Texas Governor Greg Abbott accepted the Mexican government’s offer of vehicles, boats, food and various other supplies.
While Trump hasn’t yet issued a statement with respect to the aid from the nation toward which he has maintained a belligerent stance since beginning his presidential campaign over a year ago, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed his gratitude for the assistance.
“It is very generous of the Mexican government to offer its help in this extremely difficult moment for our citizens in Texas, and now Louisiana,” Tillerson said from Washington.
While gestures of goodwill and confraternity zap back and forth along the rarified jet stream of international relations, immigrants on the ground seeking reassurance as to how they will be treated by shelter workers and immigration agents suffer from an unreliable and erratic rumor mill.
Eloy Gonzalez, a 40-year-old truck driver interviewed by the New York Times, portrayed a climate of fear among displaced immigrants.
“People were telling each other that the immigration men were coming to check our papers,” said Gonzalez, a legal resident and recent arrival at the George R. Brown Convention Center shelter. “The rumors are false but the fear is still there.”
The U.S. Border Patrol made it clear that it had no intention of ceasing its checkpoint activities aimed at busting illegals coming to and from Mexico, but that they would be located south of the city, away from the areas affected by flooding, while Houston officials assured residents that no immigration-related operations would be conducted at food banks or shelters.
Many immigrants are loath to take government and immigration officials at their word, however.
Highlighting the understandable skittishness of a highly vulnerable sector of the population was the alarm and panic at the sight of a flotilla of Border Patrol boats – sent to aid flood victims – cruising the flooded streets of Houston. Even after official Manuel Padilla Jr. went on Univision in an attempt to reassure people of the agency’s intentions merely to assist in life-saving operations, fears of deportation among immigrants persisted.
Those fears are unlikely to be eased when Senate Bill 4, a piece of harsh anti-immigration legislation, goes into effect next week in the state of Texas.
The road ahead for Red Cross Mexico may not be free of bumps or potholes, either. While there is little doubt that Red Cross Mexico’s dispatch of a corps of 33 volunteers is an unequivocal gesture of amity, controversy surrounding the operations of its U.S. counterpart in the area may affect the warmth of their reception.