I’expiry of a measure makes the American authorities fear a “chaotic” influx of migrants. At 11:59 p.m. Thursday, a measure that had allowed the United States to lock down access to its territory since the start of the pandemic expired. The change has confused many migrants at the border.
Will there be an influx? Faced with the Republicans who overwhelm it and demanded the maintenance of this measure, Title 42, the government of Democrat Joe Biden recalled that new restrictions on the right of asylum have been adopted.
“I want to be very clear: our border is not wide open. People crossing our border illegally and without a legal basis to stay will be immediately […] expelled,” said Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Mayorkas.
However, “we are lucid about the challenges that we are likely to face in the days and weeks to come and we are ready to respond to them”, he added, noting that “a high number of arrivals” had already been observed “in certain sectors”.
President Biden himself recently claimed that the situation would be “chaotic” for a while.
24,000 border police
To prepare, the federal state has mobilized “more than 24,000 agents and law enforcement officers” at the border, in addition to 4,000 soldiers.
In Matamoros, a Mexican border town of Brownsville in Texas, migrants continued to cross the Rio Grande River to the United States on foot or in improvised canoes.
Coming from the other side, a message in Spanish was repeated over a loudspeaker: “Stay in Mexico, it is illegal to cross into the United States. If you pass, you will be expelled. »
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Between Tijuana and San Diego, 21-year-old Ecuadorian Steven Llumitaxi says he has “confidence” that he will be admitted to the United States with his wife and 2-year-old son. “It seems that babies are more of a priority,” he says.
Some migrants rushed across the border some 3,000 km before Title 42 was lifted to seek asylum, fearing the change in rules would prevent them from doing so for five years.
A “puzzle” for migrants
Title 42, supposed to limit the spread of Covid-19, gave the American authorities the possibility of immediately turning back all migrants entering the country, including asylum seekers. In three years, it has been used 2.8 million times.
New asylum restrictions, finalized by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, immediately went into effect Thursday evening.
Before presenting themselves at the border, asylum seekers, with the exception of unaccompanied minors, must now have obtained an appointment on a telephone application set up by the border guards, or have been refused access. asylum in one of the countries crossed during their migratory journey.
Otherwise, their request will be presumed illegitimate and they may be subject to an accelerated deportation procedure, prohibiting them from entering American soil for five years.
Faced with changing migration patterns, rumors spread by smugglers and a complex online procedure, the migrants who pile up in northern Mexico bear witness to a puzzle.
The CBP One app, designed to centralize asylum claims in the United States, frustrates many migrants at the border.
Because of its frequent bugs, “it’s a nightmare, a real ordeal. This app undermines us emotionally and psychologically,” says Juan Pavon, a trader who fled Venezuela with his family.
The Democratic executive is keen, on the burning subject of immigration, to display a balanced policy while the Republicans accuse Joe Biden, new candidate for 2024, of having transformed the border into a “sieve”.
Thus, for former Republican President Donald Trump, “Joe Biden has officially abolished what was left of America’s borders”.
On Thursday, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a bill to restrict immigration. The text, which provides for the resumption of construction of Donald Trump’s famous wall on the southern border, has almost no chance of being adopted in the Senate, in the hands of the Democrats.