2023-05-12 11:57:00
The US government has warned that it will continue to deport migrants who try to enter without using “legal channels” as of this Friday (12), despite the end of border restrictions enacted during the pandemic.
At 23:59 on Thursday (11) in Washington (00:59 GMT, Friday), the US government suspended the so-called Title 42a rule activated during the pandemic to supposedly curb the spread of Covid-19, but which in practice has been used nearly 2.8 million times to expel migrants and prevent asylum applications.
Far from causing relief, the end of Title 42 provoked a great deal of confusion and frustration on the Mexican side of the border.
In a pre-campaign context for the 2024 presidential election, in which immigration is a recurring theme, the government of Democratic President Joe Biden adopted measures to try to curb the possible mass arrival of migrants at the border with Mexico.
This was done by combining “legal avenues” with a tightening of asylum conditions, measures that Republicans, in particular Biden’s predecessor and future election opponent Donald Trump, consider insufficient.
Some migrants tried to cross the border until late on Thursday. Nearly 1,300 people, including families with babies, crossed the border into Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, but the US patrol intercepted the group.
As migrants tried to cross the border in this area, the United States National Guard installed more barbed wire fences to prevent further crossings.
At the height of Matamoros, heavy machinery was preparing the ground for a barbed wire fence, which forced people to look for free stretches. A border patrol agent acknowledged a few hours before midnight that no one was allowed through.
As of this Friday, migrants arriving at the border are subject to Title 8, which was already being applied.
This means that if someone arrives without meeting the requirements for asylum “they will be subject to more severe consequences for illegal entry, including a minimum five-year re-entry ban and possible criminal prosecution”, warned Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
However, meeting the requirements will be more difficult because, at the same time, the rule of presumption of “ineligibility” for asylum came into force, which is conditional on two requirements: having followed the “legal channels” or having applied in a country of transit and this has been denied.
To follow a “legal route”, the migrant can resort to family reunification programs, humanitarian visas for quotas of Venezuelans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans, or else process their requests before arriving at the border through the CBP One application.
“UNBELIEVABLE”
Migrants can hardly believe that their future depends on a mobile app that, in addition, according to them, does not work well.
“It’s unbelievable that an app practically decides our lives and our future,” complained Jeremy de Pablos, a 21-year-old Venezuelan camped in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Facial recognition is the most difficult because “it’s a lottery, recognize who you want”.
“Our borders are not open”, emphasizes Mayorkas, contradicting people smugglers who “spread false information”.
This is not enough, however, to discourage those who still have hope.
On the border line between Tijuana and San Diego, Steven Llumitaxi, a 21-year-old Ecuadorian, maintains “a lot of faith” that immigration authorities will allow him to pass with his wife and 2-year-old son.
“They say that babies have a higher priority,” he told AFP in Tijuana, where he was taken by “coyotes” who charged $3,000 (about R$14,800) to help him cross from the southern border with Guatemala.
NERVOUSNESS
Mayorkas guarantees that the transition from Title 42 to Title 8 “will be quick”, with the help of 24,000 Border Patrol agents and officers.
On Wednesday (10), the President Biden acknowledged that “it will be chaotic for a while”.
With few exceptions, migrants will be deported to their countries of origin and, in the case of Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans, to Mexico.
Among the migrants who manage to enter, some sleep on the streets or in overcrowded shelters, while others contact friends or acquaintances to travel to the cities where they are expected.
In Brownsville, an American border town, nerves are on edge. Venezuelan Patricia Vargas cries because she managed to cross the border, but her family did not.
“They returned my son to Monterrey. They just announced it. There were five of us in total and I was the only one who managed to get through”, he laments. “It is no longer possible to pass. Now it is waiting for the application to work”, she said.
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