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President Joe Biden will not use the considerable powers wielded by his predecessor to deport unaccompanied immigrant children at the southern border, despite a federal appeals court clearing the way for him last week, a door said on Tuesday. – speech of the White House.
Between March 2020 and the fall, the Department of Homeland Security deported unaccompanied immigrant children from the U.S. border more than 13,000 times at the request of former President Donald Trump, according to internal documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.
Previously, unaccompanied children were sent to government-run shelters as they attempted to pursue their asylum claims. But the Trump administration argued that the policy was necessary to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
On Tuesday, a White House spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the policy of the new administration “is not to deport unaccompanied children who arrive at our borders.”
“The president’s approach is to treat immigration in a comprehensive, fair and humane manner,” added the spokesperson, noting that the administration has already refused to promptly return unaccompanied children. Biden on Tuesday signed an order directing officials to consider whether the termination of the entire policy, which also led to the deportation of thousands of adults, is necessary.
The White House statement comes after a Federal Court panel decided to suspend a November order that prevented the Trump administration from using a public health provision of the CDC coronavirus to deport children.
Deportations are legally different from deportations, which would mean that an immigrant has actually gone through the immigration process and has not been legally allowed to stay in the United States. Critics said the Trump administration was using public health orders as an excuse to violate federal laws that govern the treatment of unaccompanied minors at the border.
Before the pandemic, unaccompanied children picked up by border patrol officers were sent to the Refugee Resettlement Office to be accommodated in shelters as they formally began claiming asylum and waited to be reunited with members. of their family in the United States.
The ORR removal process was created by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which was signed by then-President George W. Bush in 2008. By law, border patrol officers are generally required to refer children within 72 hours to the US refugee agency. .
Biden administration officials said the process will continue as it has been since November, when US judge Emmet Sullivan blocked early returns of children to the border.
“The border patrol will continue to transfer unaccompanied children to the HHS refugee resettlement office so that they can be properly cared for in appropriate shelters, in accordance with their best interests,” the House spokesperson said. White.
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