Why Are Migrants Blocked At The Border Under Covid Rules
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, U.S. health authorities issued an order, known as Title 42, that allows border agents to rapidly send migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico or other countries.
The order was implemented under Republican former President Donald Trump, whose administration sought to greatly curtail both legal and illegal immigration. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at the time it was needed to stem the spread of COVID-19.
Some public health experts, Democrats and advocates criticized the order, saying it unlawfully blocked migrants from claiming asylum and subjected them to dangers, like kidnapping and assault, in Mexico.
What Border Crossing Data Shows
According to a Newsweek analysis of data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, overall encounters under the Biden administration have continued to trend higher than in previous years before recently decreasing in June. While the number of migrant encounters has fallen, those figures remain significantly higher than when Trump was in office.
Migrant encounters during the Trump administration did generally trend downward after he instituted the Remain in Mexico policy, which required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings in U.S. immigration court. Initially, there had been an uptick in encounters after the policy took effect in January 2019. However, by the end of that year, encounters had fallen below the figures seen a year before and remained relatively low until March 2021, which was when the Biden administration first faced national criticism related to the border.
Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy stayed in place until August, when Biden was finally able to lift the program after months of a legal back-and-forth. It is unclear what the true impact of revoking the policy is. The number of encounters in the month since the policy was reversed have yet to be released, and even if they were, it is likely too early to extrapolate conclusions about the Trump-era policy.
Texas Army National Guard Member On Patrol
A member of the Texas Army National Guard is on duty at an opening in the border wall.
In September 2021, thousands of migrants, mostly refugees from Haiti, made camp at a makeshift migrant encampment under a nearby bridge in Del Rio, Texas,, causing U.S. Customs and Border Protection to temporarily close the port of entry there and instead focus more on border patrol.
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A Political Headache For Biden
The rising migrant figures represent an ongoing political problem for the Biden administration, setting him on a collision course with Republican-led states.
Three Republican-run states – Texas, Arizona and Florida – have announced initiatives to move migrants to Democratic-led ones, sometimes leaving them at high-profile locations such as wealthy Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts or near Vice-President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington DC.
Officials in these states have argued that the tactic is aimed at mitigating the impact of migration flows in local communities. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for example – who in September flew a group of migrants to Massachusetts – said that “the minute even a small fraction of what those border towns deal with every day is brought to their front door, they all of a sudden go berserk”.
The battle over immigration has also found its way back to Capitol Hill.
In early December, House Republicans introduced legislation that would expand the Department of Homeland Security’s power to swiftly remove detainees without a hearing if they’ve been in the country less than two years.
Under current regulations, the process is limited to migrants detained within 100 miles of the border or those who have been in the US less than 14 days.
“President Biden’s failed policies are crushing our southern border,” Tennessee congressman Mark Green said in a statement.
Ap Fact Check: Donald Trump And The Us
WASHINGTON In his prime-time speech to the nation, President Donald Trump declared a border crisis thats in sharp dispute, wrongly accused Democrats of refusing to pay for border security and ignored the reality of how drugs come into the country as he pitched his wall as a solution to varied ills.
A look at his Oval Office remarks Tuesday night:
DRUGS
TRUMP: Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border.
THE FACTS: A wall cant do much about that when drug trafficking is concentrated at land ports of entry, not remote stretches of the border.
The Drug Enforcement Administration says only a small percentage of heroin seized by U.S. authorities comes across on territory between ports of entry. The same is true of drugs generally.
In a 2018 report, the agency said the most common trafficking technique by transnational criminal organizations is to hide drugs in passenger vehicles or tractor-trailers as they drive into the U.S. though entry ports, where they are stopped and subject to inspection. They also employ buses, cargo trains and tunnels, the report says, citing other smuggling methods that also would not be choked off by a border wall.
WALL MONEY
TRUMP: Democrats will not fund border security.
Senate Democrats have approved similar funding year after year.
VIOLENCE
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Why The Recent Spike
The number of migrants arriving at the border rose dramatically after Mr Biden took office in late January 2021.
Experts point to a number of reasons for the increase, including environmental disasters and economic woes in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. In other cases – such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela – economic problems have been compounded by political repression.
There are also large numbers of repeat crossings and lingering pandemic-related economic issues across Latin America, experts say.
“There’s a level of desperation we hadn’t quite seen before,” said Adam Isacson, a migration and border expert from the Washington Office on Latin America.
“And you’ve got people coming from countries that had not sent migrants in significant numbers before now becoming top senders of migrants, due largely to a lack of economic opportunities. Smugglers take advantage of that.”
Many of the migrants are now seeking asylum, a process which was severely restricted by the previous US administration of Donald Trump.
President Biden’s proposal to provide a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented Americans has also been blamed for spurring the record influx at the southern border.
Trump Vows To Close Border Even If It Hurts The Economy
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By Jim Tankersley and Ana Swanson
WASHINGTON President Trump acknowledged Tuesday that closing the southern border with Mexico could damage the United States economy, but said protecting Americas security was more important than trade.
In remarks from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump reiterated his threat to shut the border if Mexico, Americas third largest trading partner, cannot restrict a flow of asylum seekers trying to cross into the United States. But the presidents economic team, concerned about the damage from such a move, said it was looking for ways to limit the fallout if Mr. Trump does do so.
Sure, its going to have a negative impact on the economy, Mr. Trump said, adding, but security is most important.
Security is more important to me than trade, he said.
Republican lawmakers, economists and business groups largely disagree with that assessment and warned this week that closing the border could cripple the flow of goods and workers and devastate American automakers and farmers, as well as other industries that depend on Mexico for sales and goods.
Mr. Trumps economic advisers have briefed him on the potential financial damage from a border shutdown and started looking for ways to mitigate it, including possibly keeping certain trading avenues open.
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Reuniting On The Border
A man embraces a female relative in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on June 19, 2021.
The event is part of an annual event that takes place across the Rio Grande called “Hugs Not Walls” in which U.S. migrants are allowed to reunite with their family members on the other side of the border for a few minutes, regardless of their immigration status or circumstances.
The Border Wall Is Outliving Trump
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Myles Traphagen kept his eye on the horizon as he maneuvered his pickup truck down a treacherous sand road in Cabeza Prieta, Arizonas largest wilderness area. Bordered by Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument to the east, Cabeza Prieta sits on the states southwestern edge. The preserve, which was founded in 1939, is known for its beauty and its desert wildlife, which includes Western diamondback rattlesnakes, Sonoran pronghorn, and lesser long-nosed bats. It is, according to the National Park Service, the loneliest international boundary on the continent. Looming mountains, some made of lava, others of granite, cleave the rugged land. They give Cabeza Prieta its nameSpanish for dark heads.
American Scar, a documentary short by the New Yorker filmmaker Daniel Lombroso, explores some of the border walls unintended consequences.
Asked for comment, a White House official said, On his first day in office, President Biden paused construction of a wall along the Southern border, and every day since we have been working to clean up the mess the prior Administration left behind, including by returning, where possible, the land it seized, returning the money it took from our military, and working closely with border communities, stakeholders, and Tribal communities to address urgent life, safety, and environmental issues.
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Is The Border More Secure Under Biden Than Trump What We Know
Amid ongoing criticism about the influx of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, the White House has defended President Joe Biden‘s immigration approach, saying that the administration is taking “unprecedented action” to keep things under control. But data suggests that the number of undocumented migrants continues to rise and reports hint that top officials at the Department of Homeland Security are growing frustrated with the White House’s response.
On Thursday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flew about 50 Venezuelan migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Several other Republican governors are also sending migrants north to blue states in an effort to get Democrats to ramp up pressure on the Biden administration to take action on the border.
As officials in Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago and now Martha’s Vineyard scramble to find resources to help the migrants that have been caught in the crossfire of political drama, the White House has continued to defend Biden’s immigration policies, contending that the administration is “doing a lot more” than former President Donald Trump did to secure the border.
“More individuals encountered at the border will be removed or expelled this year than in any previous year,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday.
What The Wall Would Mean For Crime In The Us
Although President Trump has railed against the carnage of crime in the United States, the crime statistics, with few exceptions, tell a very different story.
From 1991 to 2015, U.S. homicides fell 36%
In 2014, 14,249 people were murdered, the lowest homicide rate since 1991 when there were 24,703, and part of a pattern of steady decline in violent crime over that entire period. In 2015, however, murders in the U.S. did shoot up to 15,696. This increase was largely driven by three citiesBaltimore, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Baltimore and Chicago have decreasing populations, and all three have higher poverty and unemployment than the national average, high income and racial inequality, and troubled relations between residents and policeconditions conducive to a rise in violent crime. In 2016, homicides fell in Washington and Baltimore, but continued rising in Chicago.
There is no evidence, however, that undocumented residents accounted for either the rise in crime or even for a substantial number of the crimes, in Chicago or elsewhere. The vast majority of violent crimes, including murders, are committed by nativeborn Americans. Multiple criminological studies show that foreignborn individuals commit much lower levels of crime than do the nativeborn. In California, for example, where there is a large immigrant population, including of undocumented migrants, U.S.born men were incarcerated at a rate 2.5 times higher than foreignborn men.
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Fact Check: Is The Us
President Donald Trump visited the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Alamo, Texas, on Tuesday to discuss his accomplishments in immigration and border safety.
During his speech, he boasted of his barrier construction along the border, his commitment to law enforcement and warned that loosening his tough immigration policies would be a “disaster.”
Donald Trump The Migrant Caravan And A Manufactured Crisis At The Us Border
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Since last weeks midterm elections, Donald Trump has spoken less frequently about the migrant caravan, but the subject is still plainly on his mind. On Friday, he signed a Presidential proclamation , which suspended the possibility of asylum for anyone entering the country between officially designated ports of entry. By U.S. and international law, migrants are allowed to seek asylum whether or not they do so at an official checkpoint along the border Trumps measure, which was immediately challenged by advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, aims to override explicit provisions of an existing federal statute in order to thwart the entry of tens of thousands of Central American migrants. As Lee Gelernt, the A.C.L.U.s lead litigator in the case, told me, It would mean the President could literally sit down with a copy of the immigration act that Congress wrote and cross out any provision he didnt like.
Trump scared us, Mejía told me. But we got to Tijuana, and it wasnt like what Trump said on TV. The border was limpia, he told meby which he meant, free of American troops. As part of a dramatic, preëlection gambit, the President sent fifty-six hundred soldiers to south Texas, hundreds of miles from where the caravan was headed. Since then, the soldiers had very little to do other than set up a patchwork of wire fencing along the border.
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More: Border Apprehensions Exceed 2 Million This Year: Enforcement Increases As Gop Buses Migrants Elsewhere
In 2020, construction crews working on the border conducted a series of detonations along a stretch of land in southern Arizona considered sacred by the local indigenous tribe.
Some construction sites including an unfinished section of what Trump called his “border wall” in Del Rio, Texas, have sat mostly abandoned since early 2021 while the Biden administration conducted its review.
“CBP intends to prioritize remediation projects needed to address life and safety issues â including the protection of individuals, Agents, and nearby communities from potential harm â and avert environmental damage or degradation,” the Department of Homeland Security said in its statement.
ABC News’ Mireya Villarreal contributed to this report.
Trump: Biden Is Destroying Our Country And It All Started With The Fake Election
At the border wall in Pharr, Texas, Trump thanked the members of Congress present.
JUST NOW: Trump arrives at the border wall in Pharr, Texas #borderwall
John C. Moritz
Trump also continued to push the big lie about the 2020 presidential election fruad, claiming he won in many states even if they dont show that way.
We produced the safest, best border weve ever had and now in a short time its over, Trump said.
Biden is destroying our country and it all started with the fake election, Trump said, criticizing the New York City mayoral election.
The big one was won by a different person, he said, and in two months the border wall would have been perfecto.
We had a closed border, the best ever, and now Trump says drugs and human traffickers are coming in.
We had human traffickers down to a halt and now they are going at a level theyve never seen, he continued.
Trump also repeated comments from the earlier border security briefing about criminals and gang members coming across the border and about all of his immigration policies that President Biden ended.
At the end of his remarks, Trump teased a possible thrid run for president.
Trump just entertained a third run. As he wrapped up, a reporter just asked if Trump would apologize about Jan. 6. Crowd responded with booing.
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Disrupting Wildlife Refuges And Parks
Proposals under consideration would locate the wall through seven Texas wildlife conservation areas, including the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and Big Bend National Park, prized among national parks as a place so remote it is considered to be one of the best place in the Lower 48 to view the night sky.
In Mission, Texas, the National Butterfly Center, where more than 200 butterfly species live near the banks of the Rio Grande, has been notified that the wall will divide the 100-acre sanctuary, placing almost 70 percent of it on the Mexican side. Plans also call for bisecting a wildlife refuge and state park, placing most of the land on the Mexican side.
After ferocious objections, Homeland Security shelved plans to build the wall through the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Alamo, Texas, where more than 400 species of birds, banded armadillos, and endangered wildcats live.
The Lives Of Asylum Seekers
Most importantly, at stake is whether the U.S. will continue to be a country that allows people fleeing persecution to seek safety inside its borders. Remain in Mexico, and other related policies, like Title 42, which has shut down access to asylum at the southern border for over two years under the guise of public health, are attempts to dismantle longstanding U.S. asylum policy that uphold our commitment to international human rights norms.
During the two years the policy was in effect under Trump, Human Rights First documented over 1,540 reported cases of kidnappings, murder, torture, rape, and other forms of violence against asylum seekers returned to Mexico. U.S. and Mexican authorities have failed to establish adequate housing options or to provide access to medical care and work, leaving people vulnerable to transnational cartels who prey on migrants. Black and LGBTQ+ asylum seekers returned to Mexico have faced particularly severe risks.
If the Supreme Court prevents the Biden administration from ending Remain in Mexico, it will enshrine a new legacy for the United States a legacy of turning its back on international commitments and sending people directly into harms way.
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