The U.S. Border Patrol has apprehended, as of late June, a total of 2,217 Romanians so far this year, most of them of Roma, or gypsy, ethnicity. In the nine months so far of Fiscal Year 2021, the total is at least 4,000.
A June 21 report on The World website details this unprecedented influx (last year’s total was only about 266; in 2019, 289). The customary explanation–and the one most likely to impress an asylum court–is that the Roma are fleeing age-old discrimination in their host countries in Europe. Perhaps more realistic and timely is the explanation that virus-related shutdowns there have hurt them economically. As we’ve often noted elsewhere, when in doubt about where to go in such circumstances, the usual answer is America. It is estimated that at least one million Roma already reside here, perhaps many more.
In Europe, saying you’re Roma is almost like saying you’re a criminal. – Roma Peoples Project
How do these Romanian migrants arrive? Authorities say most fly as tourists from Paris to Mexico City, where they do not need visas. They then hire smugglers to take them by bus to the U.S. border. The two most popular crossing points for Romanians are San Diego and the Rio Grande Sector in Texas. At the latter, they’ll cross the river by raft and await the Border Patrol on the American side.
While Roma believe the U.S. is less racist and anti-gypsy than Europe, still we are told (by the European Roma Rights Center of Amnesty International), that it does exist, often in the form of “microaggressions.” The Roma People’s Project at Columbia University hopes to tackle this prejudice by empowering the community to embrace its culture and to “inspire a new generation of Roma to feel a sense of pride in their cultural identity” in America.
For more, see The World website.