According to preliminary data, the Biden Administration expelled more than half of the migrants arriving at the U.S.- Mexico border in recent weeks under a Trump-era health order that has been continued by the current administration.
Out of 103,000 migrants encountered by Customs and Border Protection in just three weeks, more than 61,000 were expelled under the heath order known as “Title 42”. President Biden had his first presidential news conference earlier this week where he faced questions about the crisis at the southern border, promising that conditions for unaccompanied minors will improve and blaming the prior administration and cooler weather for the spike of migrants at the border.
The Department of Homeland Security continues to expel “noncitizen single adults and many family units” per the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention public health order. In some situations, when expulsion is not possible due to Mexico’s inability to receive them, families are put into deportation proceedings. However, a government official stated that “This administration draws the line when it comes to children. We don’t expel young children back into violence or further trauma.”
To move migrants faster out of overwhelmed facilities, Customs and Border Protection has begun releasing people in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, region without a “notice to appear”, a documented that instructs them to appear before an immigration judge on a certain date. This decision could make it more difficult for authorities to track migrants entering the country and could spark confusion among those looking to have their asylum cases adjudicated.
A Department of Homeland Security official said that the release of some migrants without notices to appear started earlier this week and its use has increased since then. This new practice, which puts the responsibility on migrants to initiate their own immigration processes, has been done on a case- by case basis in the past but is now being used more widely to speed up processing and get people out of government custody faster. “The oversaturation is so great that in order to move people fast enough, that is what we have had to resort to. Resources are stretched so thin” said a DHS official.
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