WASHINGTON (AP) – Somehow they did not see it coming.
The administration of Biden reversed within a few weeks after the inauguration day on January 20 many of the most malicious immigration policies of the Trump era, who deported asylum-seeking children who arrived alone at the U.S.-Mexico border and forced migrants to wait in Mexico while bringing their case to the United States.
While the government has been working on immigration legislation to address long-term problems, it does not have a plan on the ground to manage a resurgence of migrants. Career immigration officials have warned that there could be a boom after the presidential election and the news that Trump policy, widely regarded as cruel, is being reversed.
Now officials are scrambling to build capacity to care for some 14,000 migrants who are now in federal custody – and probably more on the way – and the government is finding itself on its heels amid criticism. that it should have been better prepared to deal with a predictable predicament.
“They should have predicted faster for space (for young migrants),” said Ronald Vitiello, a former acting director of immigration and customs enforcement and head of border patrols who served in Republican and Democratic governments. “And I think in retrospect, maybe they should have waited until they had extra shelter before changing the policy.”
The situation on the southern border is complicated.
Since Biden’s inauguration, the U.S. has seen a dramatic increase in the number of people encountered by border officials. There were 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children in February – an increase of 168% and 63% respectively from the previous month, according to the Pew Research Center. This creates a huge logistical challenge because children in particular need higher standards of care and coordination between agencies.
Yet the encounters of minor minors and families are fewer than at various locations during the Trump administration, including in the spring of 2019. In May, authorities encountered more than 55,000 migrant children, including 11,500 unaccompanied minors and about 84 500 migrants living in family units.
Immigration officials in the career, overwhelmed by the earlier congestion, has long warned that the flow of migrants to the border could increase again.
Migrant children are sent from border guards to other government facilities until they are released on bail. The process was significantly delayed by a Trump administration policy of ‘enhanced investigation’, in which details were sent to immigration officials and some sponsors who were eventually arrested, some of whom asked to pick up children on concerns about being deported. Biden has reversed the policy, so immigration officials hope the process will now speed up.
Officials from the Biden administration have repeatedly blamed the previous government for the current situation, arguing that Biden inherited a mess as a result of President Donald Trump’s undermining and weakening of the immigration system.
The White House also points to Biden’s decision to deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known for helping communities in the aftermath of a natural disaster, to support efforts to process the growing number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the border .
Biden and others pushed back the idea that what is happening now is a ‘crisis’.
“I believe we will have enough of the beds next month to care for these children who have no place to go,” Biden said in a recent interview with ABC News when asked if his government should expect the increase in young people. . unaccompanied migrants as well as families and adults. He added: ‘However, let’s get something right. The vast majority of people crossing the border are sent back … sent back immediately. ”
Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington People’s Group for Latin America’s advocacy for human rights, said Republicans’ insistence that there was a “crisis” at the border had been exceeded, but that the increase in migrants was predictable. .
He calls it a perfect storm of factors: hurricanes that hit Central America last fall; the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic; typical seasonal migration patterns; the thousands of Central American migrants who have been stranded at the border for months; and the continuing plague of gang violence plaguing the Northern Triangle countries – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Isacson said the government in Biden could “slowly or two weeks” slowly prepare for the increase in unaccompanied young migrants and the subsequent housing shortage after announcing in early February that they were no longer accompanying.
But Isacson added that the bottleneck is also affected by the Trump administration’s lack of cooperation with the Biden transition.
The Biden government announced on February 2 that it would no longer maintain the Trump administration’s policy of automatically deporting minor asylum seekers. Two weeks later, the White House announced plans to admit 25,000 asylum seekers in the U.S. who were forced to stay in Mexico.
In the weeks that followed, the number of young migrants without adults skyrocketed. Both customs and border protection and health and human services officials struggled to accommodate the influx of children. Immigration officials say the number of adult migrants and families seeking to enter the United States illegally has also increased.
Border patrol officers have encountered more than 29,000 juvenile minors since Oct. 1, nearly the same number of juveniles arrested during the previous fiscal year, administrative officials say.
“Having the ability to deal with underage minors is critical, but the numbers can’t just point to a crisis,” Isacson said.
That did not stop the Republicans – including Trump and the leader of the Republican House, Kevin McCarthy of California – from looting Biden.
“It’s more than a crisis. It’s a human grief, ‘McCarthy said. He led a delegation of a dozen fellow Republicans from the House Monday to El Paso, Texas.
Biden also receives criticism from Republicans that his government has sent mixed messages.
Critics have focused on public comments from Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Mayorkas, who said earlier this month that the government’s message to migrants “is not coming now” and a strip by White House chief adviser Roberta Jacobson border, which in Spanish during a recent briefing is the “border not closed” before correcting herself.
The president and other administrative officials have intensified efforts over the past few days to encourage migrants not to come. Embassies in Northern Triangle countries have issued public announcements highlighting the dangers of the trek north.
Eric Hershberg, director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at the American University, said Biden’s team faces a powerful counter-narrative as they try to persuade desperate Central Americans to stay: chat on social media of migrants successfully crossing the border and smugglers insisting that now is the ideal time.
Hershberg cites a Honduran friend’s response to U.S. warnings that migrants could be in danger on the trip: ‘You know, you do not have to deal with such insecurity. You can just stay here and know that you will be raped or killed. ‘