It makes the American and Mexican governments fear a “chaotic” influx in the coming weeks. A measure that allowed the United States to lock access to their territory since the start of the pandemic expired this Thursday, May 11 at 11:59 p.m. (03:59 GMT Friday). A change that has confused many migrants at the border and caused concern for the authorities. The Express provides an update on this unprecedented migration crisis at the US-Mexico border.
What is the current legislation?
“Title 42”, supposed to limit the spread of Covid-19, gave the possibility to the American authorities to immediately return all migrants entering the country, including asylum seekers. In three years, it has been used 2.8 million times.
New asylum restrictions, finalized by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, immediately went into effect Thursday evening. Before presenting themselves at the border, asylum seekers, with the exception of unaccompanied minors, must now have obtained an appointment on a telephone application set up by the border guards, or have been refused access. asylum in one of the countries crossed during their migratory journey.
Otherwise, their request will be presumed illegitimate and they may be subject to an accelerated deportation procedure, prohibiting them from entering American soil for five years.
What is the situation on the ground?
Some migrants rushed across the border some 3,000km before ‘Title 42’ was lifted to seek asylum, fearing the change in rules would prevent them from doing so for five years. To prepare, the federal state has mobilized “more than 24,000 agents and law enforcement” at the border, in addition to 4,000 soldiers.
In Matamoros, a Mexican border town of Brownsville in Texas, migrants continued to cross the Rio Grande River towards the United States on foot or in improvised canoes. Coming from the other side, a message in Spanish was repeated over a loudspeaker: “Stay in Mexico, it is illegal to cross into the United States. If you cross, you will be deported”.
Faced with changing migration patterns, rumors spread by smugglers and a complex online procedure, the migrants who pile up in northern Mexico bear witness to a puzzle. The “CBP One” application, designed to centralize asylum requests in the United States, is frustrating many migrants at the border. Because of its frequent bugs, “it’s a nightmare, a real torture. This app undermines us emotionally and psychologically,” said Juan Pavon, a trader who fled Venezuela with his family.
What is the authorities’ response?
The Democratic executive is keen, on the burning subject of immigration, to display a balanced policy, while the Republicans accuse Joe Biden, new candidate for 2024, of having transformed the border into a “sieve”. Thus for former Republican President Donald Trump, “Joe Biden has officially abolished what was left of America’s borders”.
On Thursday, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a bill to restrict immigration. The text, which provides for the resumption of construction of Donald Trump’s famous wall on the southern border, has almost no chance of being adopted in the Senate, in the hands of the Democrats.
Faced with the Republicans who overwhelm it and demanded the maintenance of this measure, “Title 42”, the government of Joe Biden recalled that new restrictions on the right of asylum have been adopted. “I want to be very clear: our border is not wide open. People crossing our border illegally and without a legal basis to stay will be immediately […] expelled,” said Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Mayorkas.
However, “we are lucid about the challenges that we are likely to face in the days and weeks to come and we are ready to respond to them”, he added, noting that “a high number of arrivals” had already observed “in certain sectors”. President Biden himself recently claimed that the situation will be “chaotic for a while”.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday called on Washington to find a solution to its differences with Cuba and Venezuela in order to slow the flow of migrants at the southern border of the United States. This call comes two days after a videoconference between President Lopez Obrador and his American counterpart Joe Biden during which the unprecedented migration crisis at the US-Mexico border was discussed. The Mexican president added that he reiterated to Joe Biden the need to address the causes of migration in Latin America and the Caribbean, where “there is a lot of poverty, a lot of abandonment”.