After days of confusion about changes along the southern border, the Biden government said on Wednesday that immigrants should not try to enter the United States because most will still be rejected under a Trump-era policy that recently passed legal scrutiny. .
Since March, border authorities have used a section of the public health code known as Title 42 to immediately refuse immigrants at the border to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. It was a major change in the way the US treated immigrants and effectively closed the border for asylum seekers.
Despite hopes among activists that President Joe Biden would change course, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday that “the vast majority” of immigrants will continue to be expelled from the border.
“Now is not the time to come,” said Psaki. “There have been incredibly narrow and limited circumstances in which individuals have entered the country waiting for their audience, but the vast majority have been rejected.”
The confusion over who was being allowed to enter the United States in the past few days forced the government to issue a stronger warning. Last week, reports of some families being allowed to enter the United States after being apprehended at the border resulted in speculation that immigrants would no longer be expelled immediately and would instead be allowed to fight their immigration cases within the states. United. In the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas, immigration advocates reported seeing around 100 people a day released by Customs and Border Protection. In other parts of Texas, shelters have also seen an increasing number of immigrant families, but it is unclear why.
Lawyers and advocates working with immigrants along the border have been bombarded with phone calls and text messages asking whether they should try their luck to enter the United States. Erika Pinheiro, director of policy and litigation for the immigrant advocacy group Al Otro Lado, said it was “incredibly disappointing” that the Biden government has continued to expel immigrants under the CDC.
“We now know that the CDC order banning asylum processing at the border did not arise from public health concerns, but was part of Stephen Miller’s efforts to dismantle the US asylum system and was implemented despite opposition from the leadership of the CDC, ”said Pinheiro, referring to one of Trump’s former senior advisers. “American expulsions of asylum seekers, including children, constitute clear violations of national and international laws designed to protect vulnerable refugees. CBP has absolutely the resources to prosecute asylum seekers in a safe and humane manner. “
The twists, known as evictions, are legally different from deportations, which would mean that an immigrant had actually gone through the immigration process and was not legally allowed to stay in the U.S. Critics say the government is using public health orders as an excuse to repel immigrants on the border.
The Biden government, which has warned it will take time to undo Trump’s immigration policies, has already conducted a policy review to determine whether it is necessary. The government, however, said it would not use the broad powers of public health to expel unaccompanied immigrant children from the southern border, despite a federal appeals court opening the way.
“While we recognize that the Biden administration has been overwhelmed with a number of bad policies and structural problems, it cannot continue the Trump administration’s practice of rejecting people in danger based on illegal policies, such as the notorious and pretextual Title 42 policy.” said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU lawyer.
Last week, CBP said families were recently released due to restrictions on COVID-19, which caused some of its facilities to reach maximum capacity. Mexico also recently passed a law that prohibits authorities from keeping undocumented immigrant children in detention centers. With no space to keep families in US detention centers and Mexico refusing to receive them, the CBP began to release some.
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said the country continues to accept Central American citizens expelled by U.S. border officials, but that there have been some changes at the local level in recent days due to the child protection law.