2023-05-13 06:08:13
The United States opened a new page in its immigration history yesterday by applying a heavy hand to migrants who arrive by avoiding “legal channels” and facing a judicial setback that complicates their plans. And she did it with a clear message: “The borders are not open.”
Until Thursday at midnight, the authorities combined a health rule that allowed them to block almost all migrants at the border, Title 42, with an immigration rule known as Title 8, which in addition to expelling those who enter without a visa or authorization it prohibits them from re-entering for five years and exposes them to prosecution.
At 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, the United States lifted Title 42, a measure activated during the health crisis to supposedly stop the covid-19 but which in practice was used almost 2.8 million times to expel migrants by preventing them from requesting asylum.
US President Joe Biden had anticipated a “chaotic” situation at the border due to the end of that rule, while his government deployed some 24,000 agents in the area.
From now on, Title 8 is exclusively used, but a rule has also entered into force that toughens access to asylum, forcing migrants to make an appointment through a mobile application (CBP One) or to take advantage of family reunification programs or to humanitarian permits for quotas for Venezuelans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans.
In any of these cases, they must process it before arriving at the ports of entry. The exceptions are few, such as if they were denied asylum in a country they transited through on their way to the United States, if they have not been able to use CBP One, in exceptional circumstances or in the case of unaccompanied children.
The internal political calendar has had a lot to do with the tightening of asylum conditions. And it is that the Democrat Biden is heading to the 2024 presidential elections with migration as one of his weak points, which the Republicans intend to take advantage of.
If the migrants “don’t have a base to stay, we will expel them very quickly. We have been very, very clear that there are legal, safe and orderly ways to seek help in the United States and if someone reaches our southern border, they will face harsher consequences,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the CNN television.
Mayorkas acknowledges that the situation is “challenging” but is optimistic that his “plan” will succeed.
For suddenly it has received a legal setback.
A Florida judge prevented him from releasing some migrants on US soil while they wait for their immigration cases to be resolved, as the government planned to do given the limited capacity of detention centers. The magistrate, who ruled before an appeal filed by the Florida government, disagrees because he considers that it amounts to releasing them in an uncontrolled manner, without being subject to “deportation proceedings and with little or no investigation and without monitoring.”
Consequences. The consequences of this official end to Trump’s immigration policy have been visible even before it expired. In recent days, tens of thousands of people have approached the northern border of Mexico, and even 11,000 people crossed into the United States in a single day, on Wednesday.
Within the country, migrant reception centers are letting those who have applied for asylum leave without yet having a scheduled date for the hearing in which they will try to demonstrate that they have a legal basis to remain in the country, in a measure that It intends to free up space before the presumable entry of more people.
Normally, people stay in these centers until said hearing, to prevent them from not showing up and staying in the country irregularly, but the reception centers are overwhelmed and cannot take in anyone else, so there are hundreds of people. on the streets of border cities like El Paso (Texas), one of the points through which more migrants cross.
On the other side of the border, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, hundreds of people wait in front of Gate 42 – the only one open in the area at the moment – to enter the United States to begin the asylum process, although the US authorities have been weeks warning that many of these requests will be denied with the new requirements that are imposed from now on.
In Florida, however, a federal judge blocked this plan in the state, after the region’s attorney general, Ashley Moody, requested in an emergency motion permission to release migrants who do not yet have a date for their release. view, without tracking them.
Likewise, hundreds of other people fear deportation and still wait at the border, not daring to request the start of the legal process. To prevent these people from crossing irregularly, the government has 24,000 border agents.
In addition, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service stopped carrying out coronavirus tests on detained people, in a series of changes announced hours before midnight that aim to increase the number of beds available in its centers and speed up the process.
Warnings. For the moment, the warnings that the United States has been issuing in recent weeks seem to have an effect. Hours before the sanitary norm expired, the Mexican government registered a drop in the flow of people trying to reach the United States.
“The flow is going down today. We have not had confrontations or situations of violence on the border,” Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said at a press conference.
According to data presented by Ebrard, the Mexican government counted 26,560 migrants in the main border cities of the country. 10,000 of them in Ciudad Juárez, 7,000 in Reynosa and 5,500 in Matamoros. The rest are distributed between Tijuana, Nogales, Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuña.
Agustión Sortomi, a Honduran, tried to turn himself in to border authorities with his wife and two children. “I have already turned myself in twice and they do not receive me. I don’t know what to do and it’s still far away,” he told reporters on Thursday.
In recent days, US agents have intercepted some 10,000 migrants a day, according to US media citing official sources. In the early hours of Friday, some migrants tried their luck, although not very convinced.
At the Tijuana border crossing in Mexico, a Guatemalan woman who calls herself Paola arrived just as Title 42 was expiring. She approached the crossing with her daughter in her arms, but an agent explained in Spanish that she could not cross and told her to stop. Download the CBP One application to process the asylum application. “I’m going to try, I said, to see what happens,” said the young woman. She tried it in the past several times. In vain.
You may also like
#Thousands #migrants #crowd #southern #border #restrictions