President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed three executive orders to begin the complicated process of reversing the Trump-era immigration restrictions, frustrating lawyers and advocates advocating the government to go faster for the sake of their clients.
The executive orders will set up a task force to review the separation of the Trump administration’s families at the border and an extensive analysis of asylum processing and the public indictment – described as a wealth test for immigrants seeking green cards.
The orders come on the same day that Alejandro Mayorkas, a former top official of the Obama administration, was sworn in as the first Latino and immigrant to run the Department of Homeland Security after the U.S. Senate voted to confirm his nomination.
‘We want to institute an immigration process here that can – it’s human, it’s moral, that consider applications for refugees, applications for people to come to – to this country, on the border, in a way that people treat as people, ”White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “It’s going to take a while. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
Immigration lawyers say time is precious for asylum seekers who have been forced to wait in bad border camps, pressure shelters and apartments in Mexico while their cases are being discussed in the US.
A Human Rights First database has found at least 1,314 public reports of rape, torture, kidnapping and other violence against asylum seekers trapped in the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).
Linda Rivas, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, said they had received more calls from desperate clients in Mexico wanting to know what was going to happen to them and their immigration trials.
“It’s not fair to them – pain, suffering, hunger and violence will continue as the government reviews what to do next,” Rivas told BuzzFeed News. ‘We call on them to act as soon as possible. These people can not keep waiting. ‘
Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said Biden’s executive orders would not lead to many immediate changes, but that they would embark on processes that could lead to significant improvements, including creating a more robust definition. of asylum, phased entries for migrants stuck. in Remain, Mexico, the removal of the public charge, and the process of applying to streamline citizenship. ”
The executive order also called on the Department of Homeland Security to stop implementing two controversial pilot programs – the Humanitarian Asylum Assessment Process (HARP) and Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) – which sought to expel Mexican and Central American asylum seekers quickly. southern border.
One executive order set up a family separation task force to identify and reunite all children separated from their parents by the Trump administration.
A senior official did not want to commit to a specific way of reuniting the families, saying it depended on the individual affairs. Some advocates have urged the government to allow deported parents to return to the U.S. and provide them with a path to legal permanent residency.
In mid-January, court documents in a federal lawsuit against the government revealed that lawyers could not yet find the parents of 611 immigrant children.
For the time being, the task force will begin work on a set of recommendations on how to best reunite families, while also looking for parents. It is believed that nearly 400 of them were deported without their children, and about 200 are believed to be in the US.
A second executive order called for a review of several of Trump’s policies that have made it difficult for immigrants to seek asylum in the United States, including the MPP, which has forced thousands of immigrants to wait in dangerous Mexican border towns.
Linda Corchado, an immigration attorney in El Paso, Texas, said the border suffered the most damage under the Trump-era programs.
“As lawyers, our work has to mean something, but it can not be in place with so many mechanisms that reduce our advocacy,” Corchado said. “If what the Biden government really wants is fair access to justice, we can not wait another day, because another asylum seeker is illegally rejected by the border patrol agents at our border, while others under MPP further damage touched. “
In his executive order, Biden said Mayorkas should consider a phased strategy to allow MPs subject to MPP in the U.S. “for the further processing of their asylum claims.” This indicates that the government is open to allowing immigrants and asylum seekers enrolled in the so-called Remain in Mexico program in the US to fight their affairs. But lawyers said the longer it takes before the process begins, the longer immigrants are under dangerous conditions.
The Biden government has stopped enrolling people in the MPP, but it still leaves thousands of immigrants waiting with pending hearings south of the border. The program sent more than 70,000 immigrants and asylum seekers to Mexico while their cases are being reviewed by a U.S. immigration judge, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.
While there are 21,557 MPP cases pending, a report from the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin said it is impossible to estimate how many of the immigrants are still waiting in Mexican border cities.
Shortly after the election, advocacy groups gave the Biden government a roadmap on how to get MPP out. Among the groups was HIAS, a Jewish non-profit organization that provides assistance and assistance to refugees and asylum seekers. Andrew Geibel, policy adviser at HIAS, said they were informed that the White House had considered their plan.
“There is this realization that the termination of MPP is a complicated process and takes time,” Geibel said. “We trust the administration will work very hard to do that.”
Biden also ordered the government to consider reversing the Trump administration’s decision to end an Obama-era program that would allow Central American children to reunite with their parents in the United States. A senior official said the program helped more than 1,400 children enter the U.S. legally and safely.
The executive order also called for a review of Trump’s “safe third country” agreements with El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to provide protection to asylum seekers in the US. Foreign Minister Antony Blinken also said in a statement that the US “intends” to suspend and terminate the bilateral agreements.
The third executive order instructed the Secretary of State, Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to review regulations and other agency actions that may conflict with ‘strategies that promote integration, inclusion and citizenship’ of immigrants.
The order also called for the Trump administration’s public indictment rule to be reviewed immediately, allowing the government to deny immigrants who are likely to use public benefits permanent residence rights. Biden also ordered officials to develop a plan that would remove barriers and improve the existing naturalization process.
‘Much of the success behind this [executive order] will be in the details, said Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, a professor at Penn State Law. “But this first step, days after the inauguration, is important and indicates that the Biden government is prepared to consider all the tools in the executive’s toolbox to change our asylum system long ago.”