The saturated southern border: this is how the first migration crisis of the Biden era was reached

The US border is closed. This is how Joe Biden’s government officials and the president himself insist on saying it by any means possible, in English and Spanish, who insist on sending the message that now is not the time to be take the dangerous road to the north. But unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, who, taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis, has stopped accepting asylum requests at the southern border, the Democrat has started to open some doors for humanitarian reasons. And these entries are interpreted by thousands of migrants fleeing poverty, violence and lack of opportunity in Central America as an invitation to try.

The apprehensions of undocumented migrants at the southern border are so numerous that, if the pace is maintained, they could reach higher levels than in the past 20 years, as Home Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned this week. . Although his government is sending all single adults and many families back to Mexico, the decision to take in unaccompanied minors and some parents with young children is straining reception capacity. The situation, presented on American television as a “humanitarian crisis”, has drawn strong criticism from the Biden administration, which faces its first major challenge two months after arriving at the White House.

What do the numbers say?

Border patrol figures reflect an exponential increase in the arrival of undocumented migrants in recent months. In February this year, border agencies apprehended more than 100,400 migrants. To find a similar figure, one would have to go back to June 2019, the month after Trump reached an agreement with Mexico, obtained under threat, to end illegal immigration. A month earlier, in May 2019, arrests had exceeded 144,000, a record number in the past two decades. That month, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to receive more asylum seekers sent by the United States while waiting for a court to hear their cases under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).

The heavy hand on the southern border and the pandemic, by which the Donald Trump administration invoked Title 42 of the immigration law to close the border to non-essential activities and new asylum cases, have brought the level of arrests of undocumented immigrants. more than 17,100 in April 2020. Since then, the figures of apprehensions increase month by month.

The rebound has been notable since the start of the fiscal year (in October 2020), especially in the apprehensions of unaccompanied minors and family units, as the border patrol calls for groups in which at least one minor and one parent or parent are traveling. Legal guardian.

What has changed at the border?

On paper, things haven’t changed much at the border, which remains closed under Title 42. However, Biden has ended the MPP program, which symbolized the former president’s heavy hand with migrants, and receives asylum seekers waiting in dangerous cities in Mexico. , in a movement that will benefit 25,000 people. In addition, in order to comply with two child protection laws in force in the country and for humanitarian reasons, it has decided to take in unaccompanied minors and certain families with young children when Mexico does not have the right to do so. capacity to accommodate them.

“Mexico’s limited capacity has saturated our resources,” Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas said in a statement this week. When that happens, he said, families are processed in the United States while they await their protection claims in the United States.

Mexico’s lack of capacity to deal with the large number of migrants on the northern border, which is evident with the significant migratory flows of recent years, is compounded by a legislative reform that came into effect in January that prohibits the detention of minor migrants. , because the Mexican authorities do not accept the return of families with young children when they cannot take them to homes suitable for them.

What steps has the Biden government taken?

With the arrival of these people at the southern border, the facilities prepared to accommodate minor migrants have also been saturated. In recent weeks, the Biden government has been forced to relax covid protocols at existing shelters to accommodate more migrant children, deploy federal emergency agency FEMA to deal with the arrival minors and families are already building suitable places to welcome them. . This week it was announced, for example, that a convention center in Dallas, Texas would be adapted to accommodate up to 3,000 minor migrants.

In the face of criticism of the chaos at the border, the Biden administration insists it is doing the right thing. “What do you do with a child who arrives alone at the border? Are you repeating what Trump did: take them away from their mothers, keep them in cells? The president asked himself this week in an interview with ABC. “We don’t do that. We call HHS [las siglas del departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos] and FEMA to provide them with safe facilities and not escape the control of those on the border patrol, which are not designed to accommodate migrants for extended periods, especially children. “

When a minor arrives at the border without family members, the border patrol must hand them over to HHS within 72 hours. According to government data, in more than 40% of cases, minors arriving at the border alone have a parent or legal guardian in the United States. The job of the HHS is to protect the child or adolescent until it is verified that they have a parent in the country. country that can take care of it.

What solutions do you propose to face the crisis?

With the economy of Central America plunged into the crisis caused by the pandemic and the fatal consequences of hurricanes Eta and Iota that hit the region, especially Honduras, where they left thousands of families homeless, a means of subsistence or other hope other than To migrate, it is impossible to think of durable solutions without addressing the reasons which push the migrants.

The Biden government insists on asking Central Americans to be patient in putting in place a system that allows them to file their asylum claims from their country of origin. “We must control the disaster that we have inherited” from Trump, justified the president in his interview with ABC. “Don’t come now. The idea is to put in place a system that allows them to seek asylum in their country of origin and not have to leave their community, ”Biden insisted. As it has moved forward, the plan is to set up processing centers so that those who wish to seek asylum or other immigration benefits can do so in their own country.

In addition, his government announced the reopening of a program for the reunification of Central American children and adolescents with their parents in the United States which was implemented by Barack Obama after the first unaccompanied minor crisis of 2014 and three years later, he was suspended by Trump. The goal is that they can apply for the reunification of their country and travel once it has been approved, to avoid the dangerous path as undocumented.

Biden also pledged to invest more than $ 4 billion to tackle the root causes of migration in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, the main sources of migrant families. But at the moment, there is no clear timeline for how this investment will be made or which agencies would be responsible for overseeing it in a region with high levels of corruption. For this reason, in the face of messages that require patience, the need makes migrant families cling to the hope of open doors, no matter how small, whereby they anticipate arrivals from Central America to the southern border will continue to increase. .