The Biden administration has announced plans for transitioning to pre-pandemic border policies and debuted new processes that officials hope will deter thousands of immigrants from journeying to the United States-Mexico border.
Department of Homeland Security and Department of State officials on Thursday unveiled the White House’s new regional migration management measures that enlist South and Central American countries, as well as Spain, to jointly handle the mass migration in the Western Hemisphere that began in 2021 and is expected to grow even more chaotic with the conclusion of Title 42 on May 11.
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“The smugglers propaganda is false. Let me be clear: Our border is not open and will not be open after May 11,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced at a press conference at the State Department in Washington Thursday morning.
“Beginning on May 12th, we will place eligible individuals who arrive at our southern border in expedited removal proceedings,” Mayorkas said. “Those who arrive at our border and do not have a legal basis to stay will have made the journey having suffered horrific trauma and having paid their life savings to the smugglers, only to be quickly removed. They will be removed most often in a matter of days and just a few weeks.”
As part of this effort, the U.S. has entered into agreements to open regional processing centers in several countries that immigrants most often travel through to get to the U.S. Its first processing centers were set up in Colombia and Guatemala.
“Individuals from the region will be able to make an appointment on their phone to visit the nearest [regional processing center] before traveling, receive an interview with immigration specialists, and if eligible, be processed rapidly for lawful pathways to the United States, Canada, and Spain,” according to a government fact sheet that outlined the policy changes.
But Mayorkas admitted that new centers outside the U.S. would only be capable of processing up to 6,000 people a month— roughly the number of immigrants arrested attempting to enter the U.S. illegally every day in the last two years.
“This is a process that will scale up over time,” Mayorkas said.
Asked by a reporter why this approach had not been done before, Secretary of State Antony Blinken shot back, “The fact is, we’re working on it now.”
“My expectation would be that many other people beyond those who are actually being processed in a given month will stay put and wait to avail themselves of this additional way of accessing legal pathways,” Blinken said.
Additional pathways for admission include the newly expanded family reunification parole program, in which DHS will begin allowing people in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to apply for entry into the U.S. if they already have a family member in the U.S. That program is being expanded to Cuba and Haiti. Immigrants paroled into the U.S. through the family program will be able to apply for documents to legally work in the U.S.
Additionally, CBP’s phone app would continue to be a resource for immigrants from Colombia, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to schedule interviews for parole. The U.S. will expand the use of the CBP One app to include people from northern and central Mexico who seek admission.
The secretaries maintained that people who do choose to circumvent these new pathways will face consequences at the border, including a five-year ban on being allowed to apply for admission and a federal criminal charge if caught trying a second time.
Starting May 12, immigrants who do make it to the U.S. and are apprehended by Border Patrol agents after illegally crossing the border will be treated according to Title 8, the previous protocols for handling illegal immigration prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
Immigrants should “generally” expect to be returned to Mexico or their country of origin “in a matter of days,” the fact sheet stated.
Under Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation that all illegal immigrants be immediately expelled to avoid spreading the virus in Border Patrol facilities, immigrants were not documented as having illegally entered and therefore faced no consequences.
In the return to Title 8, immigrants will once again go through the full system rather than simply being turned back. This return means Border Patrol could have tens of thousands of immigrants in its custody in the days after the transition because it is not immediately expelling people.
Immigrants who are placed in expedited removal then have the opportunity to begin the asylum process by claiming a fear of return to their country of origin.
“Individuals in expedited removal proceedings and who express a fear of persecution in their country of nationality or designated country of removal will be referred to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer with specialized asylum training for a credible fear interview,” Mayorkas said. “Interviews of single adults, as well as any immigration judge review of a negative determination, will take place while the noncitizen is in DHS custody, either in a U.S. Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.”
DHS is surging immigration judges and asylum officers into the region, as well as setting up more areas in DHS border facilities for immigrants to speak with outside lawyers and asylum officials. Initial asylum screenings will be conducted within 24 hours of a claim, Mayorkas vowed.
Removal flights to Cuba will restart following the Castro regime’s refusal to take back its citizens. People from Haitian, Nicaragua, and Venezuela will be returned to Mexico — a move that the U.S. had not been permitted to do during the pandemic due to Mexico’s unwillingness to accept people from those countries.
One reporter asked Mayorkas about family detention following a Washington Post report earlier this month that the Biden administration was considering holding families in federal custody.
A 2015 court ruling forbids the government from detaining children and families for more than 20 days, which is not enough time for families to appear before a judge and have their claims resolved. As a result, the large majority of families who have crossed the border over the past two years have been released into the U.S., sometimes tracked through ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program.
Mayorkas said families would be placed in expedited removal, like adults, but added that the DHS was “focused on utilizing the full spectrum” of the alternatives to detention. The move could create a way for families to avoid being returned and get released into the U.S.
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“We will — on a case-by-case basis use enhanced alternatives to detention as warranted,” Mayorkas said. “If they receive a final order of removal, we will enforce the law and they will be removed.”
Mayorkas vowed to remove from the country any family who a judge has decided does not have a legitimate asylum claim. However, internally, Mayorkas has told ICE to prioritize the arrests and deportations of convicted criminals, making families with a court order a low priority.
