Ciudad Juarez - (AFP) - Migrants stranded in Ciudad Juarez, a city in northern Mexico bordering the United States, condemned the construction of a new barrier of containers on the border with the US state of Texas, days after announcing the dismantling of a similar facility in Arizona.

These containers were placed on the American bank of the Rio Grande River, which forms the border separating the United States and Mexico and is known as the Rio Bravo to the Mexicans, according to AFP correspondents at the site.

A similar barrier consisting of 915 containers was erected along the border by the decision of the Arizona authorities, distorting the Coronado National Forest, which is a natural area protected at the federal level, but the judiciary ordered its dismantling before the fourth of January.

"The situation at the border is getting more complicated every day, with fences, soldiers and now containers," said Moses Carrillo, a 31-year-old Venezuelan who arrived in Ciudad Juarez after a four-month journey.

Joseph Diaz, another 24-year-old Venezuelan, declared, "It is racism. There is no equality. They think they are superior to us, but we are all human beings in the eyes of God."

The number of undocumented migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border is now at record levels, with more than 200,000 people arrested in November alone.

The US Supreme Court ruled this week to uphold a measure taken during the Covid-19 pandemic that allows for the expulsion of immigrants at the border.

And in March 2020, the government of former President Donald Trump activated this health mechanism in order to be able to immediately expel immigrants without official residence papers in their possession and who were arrested at the land borders, including potential asylum seekers.

This measure, known as "Article 42", is immediate in effect and does not allow any judicial appeal or automatic return to the country of origin.

Since the activation of the mechanism in March 2020 until last September, the US authorities at the country's southern borders have returned 2.3 million asylum seekers and immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, according to official data.