Some 8,000 Honduran asylum seekers tried to organize a cozy party for President Joe Biden this month. His effort to reach the southern U.S. border in at least two caravans was rejected thanks to agreements Trump made with Mexico and Guatemala to use force to intercept illegal aliens. But Central America remains a slow-fire cauldron of potential migrants desperate to work in the U.S.
Now Mr Biden has to come up with his own strategy. There would be more resources at the border to process applicants. But without new incentives for migrants to comply with the law, the United States will rely heavily on the militarization of immigration policy in Guatemala and Mexico to contain the inevitable flows of illegal aliens.
It seems that Hondurans have logically concluded that with Democrats in power again, Trump-era asylum restrictions would surely be removed. However, on Jan. 17, NBC News reported that a senior Biden transition official said his message to migrants was that “this is not the time to make the trip.” The same official also said that “they must understand that they will not be able to enter the United States immediately.”
Good words of warning did nothing to discourage migrants who had left on 15 January. On January 18, they were in violent clashes with the Guatemalan National Guard and the national police. Mothers with tears sat on the ground holding their children while young men blocked roads, threw stones and tried to make their way to law enforcement.
Front reports say thousands of people turned back. My sources say the rest has split into smaller groups that continue to move north. The White House said over the weekend that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, agreed to continue working to “stop the flow” of illegal aliens from Central America to Mexico. If they reach the U.S. border, the Biden administration has warned that processing priority will be for those already waiting in the asylum queue.