(Los Angeles) A federal judge in Louisiana blocked the administration of Joe Biden on Friday from lifting a health measure implemented by the Trump administration during the pandemic to be able to deport without delay migrants crossing without visas the land borders of the United States. .
Updated yesterday at 5:53 p.m.
The Biden government immediately announced its decision to appeal the judgment.
“The administration does not agree with the court’s decision and the Ministry of Justice has announced that it will appeal,” Karine Jean-Pierre, spokesperson for the executive, said in a statement. specifying that in the meantime, the measure called “Title 42” would continue to be applied.
The authorities wanted to lift this device on May 23, which is very controversial because it notably prevents asylum seekers from formulating their request, but the Republican governors of 24 states opposing it had taken legal action.
“The court finds that the plaintiff states have met the conditions” to obtain its provisional maintenance, writes Judge Summerhays.
These “complainant States” assert in particular that the lifting of this measure would cause an upsurge in border crossings and consequently an increase in the number of migrants residing illegally on their soil.
“Title 42” is a public health measure that was adopted in 1893 to protect the United States against the numerous epidemics of cholera and yellow fever that were occurring at the time. It has only very rarely been implemented since then.
In March 2020, the government of former President Donald Trump invoked the COVID-19 pandemic to activate this health system allowing the immediate expulsion of migrants without residence permits arrested at land borders.
This measure is applicable immediately and does not allow legal recourse, even for those who wish to file an asylum application.
Rare exceptions are provided for, for certain nationalities such as Ukrainians since the invasion of their country by Russia, or for unaccompanied minors.
Since coming into force, the device has been used more than 1.8 million times.
Many injured and dead
Human rights activists feared the maintenance of “Title 42” which, paradoxically, translates according to them into an upsurge in attempts to illegally cross the border with Mexico. Because there are no legal or judicial consequences for migrants expelled under this system, who can try their luck as much as they wish.
But the accidents – dehydration in the desert, drowning, falls while crossing the wall – cause many injuries and deaths, they deplore.
“This regrettable decision says that the government can suspend asylum applications without notice but cannot restore a normal immigration process without going through a long and complicated process”, reacted to AFP Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, expert of the NGO American Immigration Council.
For him, it is an “absurd decision” which will “continue to harm asylum seekers and cause chaos at the border” with Mexico.
States wishing to maintain “Title 42” evoked apocalyptic figures, saying that the number of attempts to cross the border would jump from 7,000 per day currently to more than 18,000 if the health measure was lifted.
They assure that many of these visa-free migrants, of whom 30,000 to 60,000 are believed to be massed in northern Mexico to wait for the opening of the border, would escape arrest by border guards.
The Biden government had admitted in early May to expect a massive influx of migrants, but the Minister of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, had said he was ready to manage this pressure at the Mexican border. He had also hammered home a clear message to candidates for illegal immigration: “Do not come”.
During the last three weeks of April, the American border police arrested an average of 7,800 migrants each day. This is almost five times more than the average of 1,600 migrants recorded between 2014 and 2019, before the pandemic.
With the midterm elections just months away in November, Republicans and Democrats agree there is a problem.
The White House speaks of a “broken” immigration system that Congress needs to fix, while his Republican opponents accuse Mr Biden of failing to protect the country’s southern border.
“Seeking asylum is a legal right, and yet this foundation of the American legal system is rapidly eroding at a time of unprecedented need,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of the NGO Lutheran Immigration and Refugee. Service.
“The (court’s) decision undermines the Biden administration’s efforts to implement what the vast majority of Americans support: a fair, humane, and orderly immigration system,” he added, saying that “Only the coyotes (smugglers, editor’s note) who take advantage of people seeking refuge have a good reason to celebrate”.