With the movement of immigrants twice as fast as normal and the measures of the pandemic that allowed them to be deported about to expire, the president is preparing for a new crisis
In the early morning of June 24, “between 1,300 and 2,000 men attempted to scale the six to ten-meter fences separating Moroccan and Spanish territory,” according to Human Rights Watch. The worst avalanche of immigrants Spain has suffered through the Melilla border is on any given day in El Paso, where last month US immigration authorities intercepted an average of 2,500 people a day at the border with Mexico. The figure was already up from the previous one of 1,700, which is expected to rise another 40% in the coming weeks.
Expires on Wednesday the deadline that justice gave the Biden administration to stop enforcing Title 42 of a public health and civil rights law that Donald Trump began using during the worst moments of Covid to justify the deportation of immigrants, even without take into account their applications for political asylum. It is estimated that nearly two and a half million people have been deported under this controversial chapter that is about to expire. The pandemic officially ended in April, according to guidelines from the US Center for Infectious Disease Control, but the Biden administration has been unable to turn the page at the border.
A series of lawsuits and appeals across the country have left authorities hanging over the abyss of the Rio Grande, where both live between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the president pledged during the campaign to end these “inhumane” policies, which are considered among the most abusive of the Trump administration on immigration. On the other hand, with the ticking of the clock, an authentic migration crisis will explode in its face in the middle of Christmas. Biden has opted for a Solomonic solution: he will abide by the judge’s order to suspend it on Wednesday, but at the same time he has appealed the decision to reserve the right to use it in the next pandemic.
On the other side of the border, immigrants also have to choose between the least of the many ailments they suffer. Eight days ago, some 1,500 Nicaraguans stormed en masse through the corridor that connects the border between Ciudad Juárez, in Chihuahua, Mexico, and El Paso, in Texas. They got off buses guarded by the Aztec National Guard, who had just freed them from the clutches of the Durango Cartel. The hitmen had intercepted the transports on which they were traveling from Mexico City to the border and diverted them to a ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere, where they were held hostage for a week until the Mexican military released them. “Imagine 1,500 people in one house!” Óscar Sánchez told the local press. “My body is bruised from the blows and kicks the people above me gave me.” They stole their money, passports, mobile phones and everything they had with them.
The Mexican military led them to the border and advised them to turn themselves in to US authorities to seek asylum, but in those difficulties they encountered another obstacle from Trump. The policy known as “Remain in Mexico” requires them to wait on the Mexican side of the dangerous border strip until their application is approved. The process can take years, resulting in authentic urban camps where the inhabitants are exposed to robberies, rapes and all kinds of intimidation on a daily basis.
Moreover, Mexico does not want Nicaraguans. His commitment is to stick only with the Mexicans and Central Americans of Honduras and El Salvador. In the last negotiations it also accepted Venezuelans, but Nicaraguans, Cubans, Peruvians and any other nationality are not welcome, neither on one side nor on the other. Biden had also promised to end that policy and as contradictory as it may seem, he must have taken a breather when a Texas court ruled against him on Thursday.
District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed by Trump on the recommendation of the Federalist Society, has issued an order to protect already overwhelmed Texas border towns, which will face an even bigger onslaught if this euphemistically dubbed policy is ended. Biden had already won the right for the Supreme to reverse it in a tight 5-4 sentence, but at the same time the court sent the case back to the Amarillo judge to determine how it could be done in accordance with the administrative laws of the state . That’s the legal loophole that allowed Judge Kacsmaryk to find that eliminating the “deterrent effect it has on illegal border crossings and the reduction of free asylum applications” would be too costly for border towns.
The judge is a character known for draconian verdicts attacking contraceptives, but the anger over the border crisis isn’t limited to the most conservative. In fact, El Paso’s Democratic mayor, Óscar Leeser, and the city’s chief of public safety, Mario D’Agostino, have appealed directly to President Biden so that he doesn’t rescind a measure without which they believe the number of immigrants that coming to your city can double to 5,000 people a day. “We need you to help us. This is so much bigger than El Paso,” the mayor begged.
The city’s shelters are overflowing. According to John Martin, deputy director of the Opportunity Center, which operates five homeless shelters in the city, the 85-person Welcome Center was home to 200 on Wednesday. “This is chaotic,” he complained. El Paso has experienced other waves of immigrants in the past, but according to D’Agostino, the arrival was more gradual. “Now the numbers are unsustainable,” he said. According to the official, the city of 678,000 has spent $9.5 million — nearly nine million euros — since last July to manage the migrant crisis, of which the federal government has only reimbursed two.
The Biden administration says it has a plan to attack “the broken and dismantled immigration system” it has inherited. The seven-page document made public on Friday envisages hiring 1,000 dispatchers and 2,500 subcontractors to process new arrivals, hundreds of flights and bus routes to transfer them to other, less crowded border posts, in addition to a 30% processing system. last year. None of this has reassured one or the other. The border is about to explode.
Source: La Verdad
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