(El Paso) A measure that has allowed the United States to lock down access to its territory since the start of the pandemic expired at 11:59 p.m. EST Thursday, a change that has confused many many migrants at the border and made the authorities fear a “chaotic” influx.
Will there be an influx? Faced with the Republicans who overwhelm it and demanded the maintenance of this measure, “Title 42”, the government of Democrat Joe Biden recalled that new restrictions on the right of asylum have been adopted.
“I want to be very clear: our border is not wide open. People crossing our border illegally and without a legal basis to stay will be immediately […] expelled,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.
PHOTO JONATHAN ERNST, REUTERS
US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
However, “we are lucid about the challenges that we are likely to face in the days and weeks to come and we are ready to respond to them”, he added, noting that “a high number of arrivals” had already been observed “in certain sectors”.
President Biden himself recently claimed that the situation would be “chaotic for a while”.
To prepare, the federal state has mobilized “more than 24,000 agents and law enforcement officers” at the border, in addition to 4,000 soldiers.
In Matamoros, a Mexican border town of Brownsville in Texas, migrants continued to cross the Rio Grande River to the United States on foot or in improvised canoes.
Coming from the other side, a message in Spanish was repeated over a loudspeaker: “Stay in Mexico, it is illegal to cross into the United States. If you pass, you will be expelled”.
Between Tijuana and San Diego, 21-year-old Ecuadorian Steven Llumitaxi says he has “confidence” that he will be admitted to the United States with his wife and two-year-old son.
“It seems that babies are more of a priority,” he says.
Restrictions on asylum
Some migrants rushed across the border some 3,000km before ‘Title 42’ was lifted to seek asylum, fearing the change in rules would prevent them from doing so for five years.
“Title 42”, supposed to limit the spread of COVID-19, gave the possibility to American authorities to immediately return all migrants entering the country, including asylum seekers. In three years, it has been used 2.8 million times.
New asylum restrictions, finalized by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, went into effect immediately Thursday evening.
Before presenting themselves at the border, asylum seekers, with the exception of unaccompanied minors, must now have obtained an appointment on a telephone application set up by the border guards, or have been refused access. asylum in one of the countries crossed during their migratory journey.
Otherwise, their request will be presumed illegitimate and they may be subject to an accelerated deportation procedure, prohibiting them from entering American soil for five years.
Faced with changing migration patterns, rumors spread by smugglers and a complex online procedure, the migrants who pile up in northern Mexico bear witness to a puzzle.
Tears and frustrations
The “CBP One” application, designed to centralize asylum applications in the United States, is frustrating many migrants at the border.
Because of its frequent bugs, “it’s a nightmare, a real ordeal. This app undermines us emotionally and psychologically,” says Juan Pavon, a trader who fled Venezuela with his family.
The Democratic executive is keen, on the burning subject of immigration, to display a balanced policy, while the Republicans accuse Joe Biden, new candidate for 2024, of having transformed the border into a “sieve”.
Thus for former Republican President Donald Trump, “Joe Biden has officially abolished what was left of America’s borders”.
On Thursday, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a bill to restrict immigration. The text, which provides for the resumption of construction of Donald Trump’s famous wall on the southern border, has almost no chance of being adopted in the Senate, in the hands of the Democrats.