WASHINGTON – A Mexican law prevented the United States from quickly refusing migrant families in one of the busiest sections of the southwestern border, forcing agents to resume releasing families into the country, according to three Biden government officials.
The Trump administration began to refuse immigrants entering the United States in March, citing the coronavirus threat, and the emergency rule effectively sealed the border for asylum seekers. But because of a law passed by Mexico in November that prohibits the detention of children and immigrant families, the country has stopped accepting these families in southern Texas, an area normally susceptible to illegal crossings, officials said.
The recent move has alarmed Department of Homeland Security officials and poses an immediate challenge to the Biden government. Homeland security officials said the emergency rule was necessary to prevent the coronavirus from spreading to detention centers along the border, as well as preventing vulnerable families from having their asylum applications heard. An increasing number of families have been detained in recent weeks at such facilities in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as in Del Rio, Texas, officials said.
Stephanie Malin, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said that due to pandemic precautions and social detachment guidelines, some facilities have reached full “safe holding capacity”.
“CBP takes the safety and well-being of its workforce and those they encounter very seriously, and we are taking even more precautions due to Covid-19,” said Malin. “As always, the number of individuals crossing the border continues to fluctuate and we continue to adapt accordingly.” She said the agency was working with community organizations to make migrants public.
The United States has expelled more than 390,000 migrants back to Mexico or their countries of origin since March. The rule reduced the number of migrants detained on the North American side of the border, but it also left Central American families confused to learn that their children had been handed over to Mexico, a violation of international agreements. And while the policy was a crucial piece of the Trump administration’s attempts to close the border to migrants, the rule also had the unintended effect of giving migrants more chances to enter illegally.
Customs and Border Protection recorded more than 73,000 crossings in December, up from more than 40,000 in July. Agents detained more than 40,000 migrants in December 2019.
Mexican law, which went into effect in January, does not apply across the border, officials said. American border agents are still refusing single adults and, in places like Arizona, families too, officials said. It is not clear how the law will affect other parts of the border.
A spokesman for Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on whether it had stopped accepting families of migrants, saying only that the United States continued to have the pandemic emergency rule in place.
But the Biden government has failed to return migrant families to Reynosa, Mexico, a change that was first reported by The Washington Post. The move raised concerns at Customs and Border Protection about a potential increase in family crossings to neighboring Vale do Rio Grande. Border crossings in recent years have been driven mainly by Central American families fleeing persecution, violence and poverty.
The Department of Homeland Security is currently building a tent facility in Donna, Texas, to house migrants, but a government official said it was not related to Mexican law. Customs and Border Protection said in November that they would close the main detention center in McAllen for reforms.
President Biden campaigned to restore asylum on the southwestern border and signed an executive order this week instructing the government to review President Donald J. Trump’s restrictive policies.
The new administration did not publicly detail when the pandemic emergency rule would be lifted. After a federal judge in the District of Columbia lifted the rule block, which prevented the United States from refusing unaccompanied migrant children, the White House said it would use its discretion to decide when to apply the policy.
Biden said in December that his government would take a cautious approach to reversing Trump-era policies to prevent an increase in the border.
His immigration plan involved relying more on programs that track migrants after they are released in the United States to ensure that they appear before the immigration court and less on detaining them.
Mexico, for its part, received praise for enacting restrictions on who owns it.
“Mexico is taking a decisive step towards ending the detention of children in immigration and we are encouraged by this promising development,” said Gillian Triggs, assistant high commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
While senior officials of the Trump administration argued that their emergency rule was just an attempt to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the Trump White House tried to use the policy to further its goals of curbing illegal immigration.
Kirk Semple contributed reporting from Mexico City.