LOS ANGELES – President Biden’s first immigration crisis has already begun as thousands of families have risen to the southwestern border in recent weeks, driven by expectations of a friendlier reception and by a change in Mexican policy for the United States States make it harder to expel some of the migrants.
More than 1,000 people have been allowed to enter the country in recent days in a rapid reversal of the Trump administration’s close closure of the border. According to lawyers and aid groups working along the border, many more are gathering in Mexico in hopes of a similar chance of crossing.
New families gathered every day in Mexican border villages, sleeping in the streets, under bridges and in dry ditches. On Thursday in Mexicali, across from Calexico, California, desperate migrants can be seen trying to scale down a border fence. The migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, just across a bridge from Texas, has increased to 1,000 people in recent weeks.
To protect against the coronavirus, San Diego health authorities have arranged accommodation for hundreds of arriving migrants in a high-rise downtown hotel, where they are being quarantined before being allowed to join family or friends in the interior of the United States. .
“There has been a significant increase in the number of asylum seekers, and we know the numbers will only increase dramatically,” said Kate Clark, senior director of immigration services at San Diego Jewish Family Service. clothing and personal hygiene items and help them arrange further.
The boom is the first major test of Mr. Pray to adopt a more compassionate policy along the border of America with Mexico.
The prospect of a large number of migrants entering the country during a pandemic could be a strong public setback for Mr. Biden creates, as his government takes steps to undo the strict policies pursued by its predecessor.
A renewed influx would put pressure on immigration courts that have already strained under a huge backlog of asylum cases. Those who prefer more restrictive immigration policies say that migrants who lose their case can go underground and choose to stay in the country illegally, adding to the estimated ten million undocumented people already in the United States.
“It was predictable that there would be almost no honeymoon for the Biden government over the multiple crises plaguing people in the Northern Triangle states of Central America and elsewhere,” said Donald Kerwin, executive director of the Center for Migration Studies. a nonpartisan, said. think scrum.
These include the two hurricanes that destroyed many livelihoods and homes in Guatemala and Honduras; the devastating effect of the pandemic on economies in Latin America; and continued gang control of many communities, often accompanied by extortion and violence.
“The Biden government must be credited with its commitment to address the conditions that are uprooting Central Americans,” he said. Kerwin said, “but it will be a very long-term process, and in the meantime people have been forced to flee.”
Before former President Donald J. Trump took office, it was the long-standing practice of several administrations to allow people facing persecution in their home countries to enter the United States and to seek asylum. . Some new migrants are in custody until their case is decided, while others have been released.
But Mr. Trump ridiculed policies such as ‘catch and release’, and in 2019 he demanded that applicants in Mexico wait until their asylum applications were approved or denied. In March last year, his government enacted a health emergency law to effectively seal the border during the pandemic, except for citizens and legal residents of the United States. Those who tried to cross were summarily expelled to Mexico.
But in recent days, Mexico has begun enforcing a law passed in November to keep children under 12 under government supervision. As a result, it ceased to re-adopt Central American families with young children in Mexico, at least along a portion of the border with Texas, which forced the United States to retain it. To prevent a large number of people being held in shelters or immigration detention centers during a health crisis, Border Patrol has released some of them to join family and friends across the United States.
At least 1,000 migrants have been allowed to move to Texas in the past few days, border activists said, although the border patrol has not released any official estimates.
It is not clear to what extent Mexico’s new law on migrant children applies outside of expulsions from Texas, where the Mexicans apply it. But hundreds of migrants were also released after crossing near the border in San Ysidro, California, activists said, and it is likely that there is also a factor in avoiding congestion at border facilities during the pandemic.
San Diego health authorities have ruled that those crossing California must stay in the hotel for ten days before being allowed to continue. According to migrants working with the migrants, there is no similar quarantine requirement in Texas for migrants arriving without coronavirus symptoms. there, they said, those released by Border Patrol may board buses and travel to other destinations.
Jewish Family Service, which helps families through their hotel quarantine in San Diego, said 140 migrants were released by the Border Patrol to the nonprofit in January, up from 54 in December. During the first five days of February, the number grew to more than 200.
“This is the busiest we’ve had in a long time,” she said. Clark said. “We work 24 hours a day to keep up.”
The news of the Mexican legislation sowed great confusion, and many migrants mistakenly believed that the law, coupled with the change of administration, meant that the United States would now allow anyone to cross.
Mother Isabel Turcios, a nun in Piedras Negras, Mexico, a small town across from Eagle Pass, Texas, described a chaotic situation with migrants arriving by train daily by train and parking themselves on street corners and in abandoned houses in hopes on a chance to cross.
“There are many, many mothers with children,” she said. “They think they will be allowed to succeed because there is a new president. Some succeed, not all. ”
At the Matamoros migrant camp, “there are new families every day when we return to camp,” said Andrea Leiner of Global Response Management, which runs two clinics.
The border patrol on Tuesday released 47 families in Kingsville, Texas, and notified a group in Houston that the migrants needed help.
Despite the onslaught of the Trump administration, there has been an increase in intimidation in the fiscal year – rising to 850,000 – at the southwestern border. Arrests were plunged into the 2020 budget year due to pandemic related restrictions on movement. Yet more than 70,000 migrants and asylum seekers were arrested along the border in December, the last full month of the Trump administration.
Advocacy organizations across the country expected the election of Mr. Praying would motivate people to move north again. In recent weeks, they have convened Zoom calls to address the strategy.
But the peak came earlier than expected.
Mr. Biden said before taking office that he would not immediately open the border, hoping to avoid a rush of migration. On February 2, he signed an executive order directing a full review of the asylum process, but administrative officials said changes to the current system would take time to materialize.
“Unfortunately, there are thousands of people and families, including many at the border, who are still suffering because of the cruel and ineffective policies that the Trump administration has instituted,” said Vedant Patel, a White House press secretary. “Resolving these actions will take time and require a full government approach.”
Desperation is mounting among asylum seekers in both Tijuana and Mexicali, the border crossings in California, with misinformation spread through social media and through smuggling networks trying to earn the confusion.
“Confirm: Migrants accompanying minors can enter the United States for 100 days,” reads one widespread but inaccurate message on WhatsApp.
In Tijuana, lawyers report that more families prefer to cross the border illegally, hoping to evade detection, rather than wait for clarity on the asylum process, which would mean trying to go through an official transit station, with the danger of being denied access. .
“The migrants are not starting to trust lawyers because we said the Biden administration would start processing them shortly after the inauguration – because that was the impression we got from the transition team,” said Erika Pinheiro, a lawyer for the group. Al Otro Lado, said. .
“After the executive orders came out without substantive information, many of the migrants were angry with us and started listening to smugglers and wild rumors,” she said.
According to a legal aid group, Dozens crossed the border illegally near San Ysidro on Thursday, but it was unclear whether they would be returned to Mexico or arrested.
In San Diego, more hotels were queuing up to accommodate migrants, Ms. Clark of Jewish Family Service said. “We’re going to need federal resources,” she said.
One of the families admitted on Friday was Jose Giusto Duarte (51) and his wife Iliana (45). The couple fled Honduras 18 months ago due to violence, Duarte said, but was only allowed into the United States last week. on humanitarian parole due to his wife’s poor health.
The couple has been waiting in Tijuana since leaving Honduras, but decided to try their luck again with Mr Biden.
“I’m just so relieved and happy at this moment, after waiting so long,” he said. Duarte said as he smiled. After several hours in custody of the border patrol, they would be allowed to go to the hotel in the city center for quarantine.
Alexander Martinez and his three children, who fled gangs in El Salvador, were also admitted last week. After an exhausting interview, US authorities transferred them to the hotel where they kept quarantine dozens of other migrating families.
There they are limited to a double room with a terrace on the third floor. Someone knocks on their door three times a day to deliver meals in disposable containers. A nurse calls every day to have their temperature checked. On Wednesday, they each underwent a coronavirus test. In the coming days, they will be free to join family members in Washington.
Mr. Martinez said the extra wait was worth it, even though his kids were really bored in quarantine. “We are very happy to be in the United States,” he said.
Miriam Jordan reported from Los Angeles, and Max Rivlin-Nadler of San Ysidro, California.