WASHINGTON (AP) – Somehow, they didn’t see it coming.
A few weeks after the inauguration day on January 20, the Biden government reversed many of the most defamed Trump era immigration policies, including the deportation of children seeking asylum who arrived alone at the border of the United States with Mexico and forcing migrants to wait in Mexico while defending their stay in the United States.
While the government was working on immigration legislation to resolve long-term problems, it did not have a local plan to manage a sudden increase in migrants. Career immigration officials warned that there could be an increase after the presidential election and news that Trump’s policies, widely seen as cruel, were being reversed.
Now, authorities are struggling to build capacity to care for some 14,000 migrants now in federal custody – and most likely on the way – and the government is on its heels in the face of criticism. who should be better prepared to deal with a predictable situation.
“They should have predicted the space (for young migrants) more quickly,” said Ronald Vitiello, a former interim director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and head of the Border Patrol who served in Republican and democratic administrations. “And I think, in retrospect, maybe they should have waited until they had additional shelter space before changing policies.”
The situation on the southern border is complex.
Since Biden’s inauguration, the US has seen a dramatic increase in the number of people found by border officials. There were 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children found in February – an increase of 168% and 63%, respectively, compared to the previous month, according to the Pew Research Center. This creates a huge logistical challenge because children, in particular, demand higher standards of care and coordination between agencies.
Still, the encounters of unaccompanied minors and families are smaller than they were at various points during the Trump administration, including in the spring of 2019. In May of that year, authorities found more than 55,000 migrant children, including 11,500 unaccompanied minors, and about 84,500 migrants traveling in family units.
Immigration career officials, overwhelmed by previous outbreaks, have long warned that the flow of migrants to the border may increase again.
Migrant children are sent from border detention cells to other government facilities until they are released to a sponsor. This process was considerably delayed by a policy of the Trump administration of “enhanced verification”, in which details were sent to immigration officials and some sponsors were eventually arrested, leading some to fear catching children for fear of being deported. Biden reversed that policy, so immigration officials hope the process will be speeded up now.
Biden government officials have repeatedly blamed the current government for the current situation, arguing that Biden has inherited confusion resulting from the weakening and weakening of President Donald Trump’s immigration system.
The White House also points to Biden’s decision to set up the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known for helping communities after a natural disaster, to support efforts to prosecute the growing number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the border.
Biden and others rejected the notion that what is happening now is a “crisis”.
“We will, I believe, have enough of these beds in the next month to take care of these children who have nowhere to go,” said Biden in a recent interview with ABC News, when asked whether his administration should have seen an increase in unaccompanied young migrants, as well as families and adults. He added: “Let’s make something very clear. The vast majority of people crossing the border are being sent back … immediately sent back. “
Adam Isacson, an analyst at the human rights group Washington Office on Latin America, said the Republicans’ insistence that there is a “crisis” on the border is exaggerated, but that the increase in migrants is predictable.
He called it a perfect storm of factors: hurricanes that hit Central America last fall; the economic precipitation caused by the coronavirus pandemic; typical seasonal migration patterns; the thousands of Central American migrants who have been stranded on the border for months; and the persistent scourge of gang violence that afflicts the countries of the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Isacson said the Biden administration may have taken “two or three weeks” to prepare for the increase in unaccompanied youth migrants and the subsequent housing crisis, after announcing in early February that he would stop deporting unaccompanied youth.
But Isacson added that the bottleneck was also affected by the Trump administration’s lack of cooperation with the Biden transition.
The Biden administration announced on February 2 that it would no longer maintain the Trump administration’s policy of automatically deporting unaccompanied minors seeking asylum. Two weeks later, the White House announced plans to admit 25,000 asylum seekers in the United States, who were forced to stay in Mexico.
In the weeks that followed, the number of young migrants crossing without adults skyrocketed. Customs and Border Protection and Health and Human Services officials have struggled to accommodate the flow of children. Immigration officials say the number of adult migrants and families trying to enter the United States illegally has also increased.
Border patrol officers have found more than 29,000 unaccompanied minors since October 1, almost the same number of youths taken into custody throughout the previous budget year, government officials said.
“Increasing the capacity to deal with unaccompanied minors is critical, but the numbers just don’t point to a crisis,” said Isacson.
That did not stop Republicans – including Trump and California’s Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy of California – from ridiculing Biden.
“It is more than a crisis. This is a human disappointment, ”said McCarthy, who led a delegation of a dozen Republican colleagues from the House in El Paso, Texas, on Monday.
Biden is also facing criticism from Republicans that his government has sent mixed messages.
Critics focused on public comments by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who earlier this month said the government’s message to migrants was “don’t come now” and a slip-up from Roberta Jacobson, the main White House advisor at the border, who said in Spanish during a recent briefing “the border is not closed”, before correcting itself.
The president and other government officials in recent days have stepped up efforts to urge migrants not to come. Embassies in the countries of the North Triangle are broadcasting public service announcements highlighting the dangers of making the journey north.
Eric Hershberg, director of the Center for Latin American and Latin Studies at American University, said that Biden’s team faces a powerful counter-narrative in trying to persuade desperate Central Americans to stay put: conversations on the social networks of migrants who managed to cross the border and smugglers who insist that now is the ideal time.
Hershberg cites the reaction of a Honduran friend to US warnings that migrants can face danger on their journey: “You know, you don’t have to go with such uncertainty. You can just stay here and know that you will be raped or killed. “