As part of its efforts to end a Trump-era policy that kept tens of thousands of asylum seekers out of U.S. territory, the Biden administration on Friday admitted the first group of migrants to they had previously been forced to wait in Mexico for their immigration court. audiences.
U.S. border officials prosecuted 25 Latin American asylum seekers at the port of entry in San Ysidro, southern California, and allowed them to remain in the country for the duration of their proceedings.
The San Diego Jewish Family Service received asylum seekers, who had to test negative for the coronavirus, and transported them to a nearby hotel so they could be quarantined, according to the nonprofit executive director Michael Hopkins. The group included six families and five individuals from Honduras, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba.
“It’s the beginning of a new day for our country,” Hopkins told CBS News. “The Rest in Mexico program was inhumane in many ways.”
A U.S. government asylum officer who has interviewed people enrolled in Trump-era politics praised the Biden administration’s effort, saying migrants allowed to enter the U.S. now “will have their claims pretty much resolved “.
“Today was a day full of hope. Finally, we saw that 25 people were well received with dignity,” Taylor Levy, a lawyer who has helped dozens of asylum seekers returning to Mexico, told CBS News. “It’s such a wonderful sigh of relief that finally, for at least the 25 people, there will be justice and hope.”
Bloomberg
To deter U.S.-linked migration, the Trump administration enacted in 2019 a program it dubbed Protectors for the Protection of Migrants (MPPs), which eventually led more than 70,000 non-Mexican asylum seekers to be returned to Mexico to await their court hearings in the United States.
Many were returned to places in northern Mexico plagued by violence and crime and waited months and even years for their court hearings in the United States while they were in migrant tent camps. The largest camp is located in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, an area the U.S. State Department warns Americans not to visit.
The Human Rights First group documented more than 1,500 allegations of assault, kidnapping, rape, threats and even murder against migrants that the United States returned to Mexico under MPP policy, according to a list updated Friday.
The possibilities for legal assistance were also scarce for most migrants returning to Mexico. More than 65,000 of the asylum seekers subject to the policy had no lawyers to represent them in court, according to government data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
The Department of Homeland Security stopped placing asylum seekers in the MPP program shortly after the inauguration of President Biden, who strongly denounced the practice during his presidential campaign.
The admission of 25 asylum seekers to California on Friday marked the beginning of a new process created by the Biden administration with the help of international nonprofit groups and the refugee agency of California. the United Nations to gradually accommodate migrants pending stay in Mexico. cases so they can stay with family or friends in the US
“Today we have taken the first step to begin processing eligible people at the border in a safe, efficient and humane manner,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
It is estimated that 25,000 people may be eligible for phase 1 of the process, but the number of asylum seekers admitted during this stage is likely to be lower as many migrants with pending cases in the United States will leave Mexico and return. in their countries of origin.
Recently captured migrants who were never enrolled in the program are not eligible for this process and continue to face rapid expulsion under a Trump-era public health order that the Biden administration has retained for now. In his statement Friday, Mayorkas warned potential immigrants not to embark on the “dangerous journey” north.
“Travel restrictions at the border remain in place and will apply,” he said.
Bloomberg
The United States will begin processing the most eligible asylum seeker trials next Monday in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and El Paso next week. Once fully operational, ports of entry at these initial locations are expected to process approximately 300 migrants per day.
On Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees unveiled a website where eligible immigrants can register to receive an appointment to enter the United States. medically vulnerable or in imminent danger.
The Biden administration requires all migrants to test negative for coronavirus at locations in Mexico before being allowed to enter the U.S. Asylum seekers who test positive must be isolated in Mexico for 10 days. After completing this period of isolation and not experiencing fever for 24 hours, these people could be considered re-entering the United States, the State Department said Thursday.
DHS has said that asylum seekers authorized to enter the United States under the Remain-in-Mexico withdrawal will not generally be sent to detention centers. Instead, they will be referred to local shelters and groups such as the Jewish Family Service so that they can access temporary housing before heading to their respective destinations in the United States.
Hopkins, the CEO of the San Diego Jewish Family Service, said his group plans to continue using hotels to provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers. Through private donations and funds from California and the federal government, the Hopkins group will provide newly admitted immigrants with clothing, food, other necessities such as diapers and help organize transportation.
“Most come with very little money and very little possessions,” Hopkins said.