FILE – In this Sept. 18, 2021, file photo Haitian migrants use a dam to cross into the United States from Mexico in Del Rio, Texas. President Joe Biden embraced major progressive policy goals on immigration after he won the Democratic nomination, and he has begun enacting some. But his administration has been forced to confront unusually high numbers of migrants trying to enter the country along the U.S.-Mexico border and the federal response has inflamed both critics and allies. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing bipartisan criticism over its approach to immigration, the Biden administration on Thursday announced new rules that require authorities to only pursue migrants who recently crossed into the country without permission or are deemed to pose a threat to public safety.

The new guidelines replace interim rules issued in February that were initially blocked by a federal judge in August as part of a lawsuit brought by Texas and Louisiana. They break from a more aggressive approach to immigration enforcement under former President Donald Trump, who early in his presidency directed authorities to apprehend anyone who was illegally in the country.

The release comes as President Joe Biden has come under fire from allies for his reliance on a Trump-era public health authority to rapidly expel migrants encountered on the U.S.-Mexico border while also facing Republican criticism that he hasn’t done enough to counter a sharp increase in migrants seeking to enter the country.

The Biden administration has expelled about 5,000 Haitians who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border at Del Rio, Texas, in recent weeks. A federal appeals court in Washington on Thursday cleared the administration to continue expelling families under the public-health authority known as Title 42. The appeals court put on hold a lower court order barring the expulsions of families hours before the ban was to take effect.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that the new policy was based on the reality that the U.S. can’t go after all people in the country without legal status and shouldn’t try because many “have been contributing members of our communities for years.”

Authorities will be directed to focus on noncitizens who have crossed recently, defined as after Nov. 1, 2020, or who determined to be a threat because of national security or “serious criminal activity.” Homeland Security includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.

Unlike the interim rules, the criminal activity is not limited to the category known in legal terms as an aggravated felony but will depend on the “totality of the facts and circumstances,” Mayorkas said. Anyone would be considered a priority if they are engaged or even suspected of terrorism or espionage, according to the memo. The new rules take effect Nov. 29.

Immigration authorities would be prohibited from arresting and seeking to deport someone in retaliation for exercising First Amendment rights, such as joining a protest or taking part in union activities.

“We are requiring and frankly empowering our workforce, critically empowering our workforce, to exercise their judgment, their law enforcement judgment,” the secretary said.

Advocates for strict immigration enforcement have criticized the interim guidelines, which were similar in intent as the newly released rules, because they were seen as a top-down approach and one that precluded low-level arrests that might yield investigative leads into bigger cases or help serve as a deterrent to illegal immigration.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said on Twitter that Biden has “welcomed” the migrants who have crossed and would now promise those already in the country that “they may stay in the U.S. without repercussions” with the new rules.

Immigrant advocates, including some who have in the past called for eliminating ICE and immigrant detention altogether, welcomed limits on enforcement but are wary given the rapid detention and expulsion of thousands of Haitians at Del Rio.

“This policy is only going to be as good as the results,” said Jacinta Gonzalez, senior campaign organizer of Mijente. “If detention numbers continue to rise, as deportations continue to happen, if we still see human rights abuses at the border, this policy won’t mean anything.”

A federal judge in Texas blocked the interim rules in August, ruling that the administration did not have discretion to choose which migrants to detain, but a federal appeals court allowed the guidelines to take effect while the lawsuit proceeds.

Mayorkas said it makes little sense to pursue all of the estimated 11 million people in the country without legal status, even if the U.S. had the law enforcement capacity to do so.

“They contribute to the well-being of our country and justice requires that we exercise our discretion accordingly,” he said. “The fact that an individual is a removeable non-citizen should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them.”

Trump’s administration took hundreds of measures to restrict both legal and illegal immigration, including a zero-tolerance policy on border crossings that resulted in the forcible separation of thousands of families and requiring asylum seekers to await the processing of their cases in Mexico.

In the end, total deportations were higher under the first term of President Barack Obama, who enacted enforcement priorities similar to Biden’s, than under Trump. That was due in part to a lack of cooperation from many cities and states whose leaders opposed Trump’s immigration policies.

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Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

Source:  https://apnews.com/article/immigration-donald-trump-joe-biden-mexico-arrests-af64610730b9c603b592101e4a7ddfa8

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(CNN)With 8,600 migrants remaining under the Del Rio International Bridge, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday officials are using “unprecedented” methods to deter migrants from crossing into the state, including parking Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles for miles along the border to create a “steel barrier.”

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Migrants crossed the Rio Grande between Texas and Mexico with supplies Thursday as they prepared to spend the night under the international bridge connecting Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for the Texas Tribune

DEL RIO — Five days after Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated by a group of foreign mercenaries on July 7, 29-year-old Stelin Jean decided to flee the country with his wife and two children — traveling to Bolivia, where many Haitians have arrived recently before starting an arduous overland trek to the United States.

The family was in Panama last month when a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, destroying thousands of homes and killing more than 2,000 people. Jean said some of his family members were injured in the earthquake, which only increased their sense of urgency to make it to the United States.

“There are people killing each other in Haiti, there’s just no justice,” said Jean, who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday afternoon after a two-month trek through the jungles of South America and then crossed the Rio Grande at Del Rio to claim asylum. “I just want to live a calm life without any problems, I want to live somewhere where I know there’s justice.”

The family has joined an estimated 12,000 migrants who in recent days have arrived at the border and are now waiting under the Del Rio international bridge, about 150 miles west of San Antonio, to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Most are from Haiti and are seeking asylum in the U.S.

On Friday, Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano declared a local state of disaster and said the city is closing the toll booths on the international bridge connecting the city to Ciudad Acuña to halt traffic across the bridge, as a security measure.

The city later released a statement that said “international traffic will continue as normal” and people could be seen going back and forth on the bridge Friday evening. But late Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that the port of entry would temporarily shutter.

“This temporary closure and shift is necessary in order for CBP to respond to urgent safety and security needs presented by an influx of migrants into Del Rio and is effective immediately,” the agency said in a statement. “It will advance and protect national interests and help ensure the safety of the traveling public, commercial traffic, and CBP employees and facilities.”

Traffic that normally uses border bridges into Del Rio will be directed 57 miles east to Eagle Pass, federal officials said. They did not indicate how long the Del Rio closures would last.

Lozano said earlier he had requested assistance from the state to help deter more migrants from entering the city. He said the city expects an additional 8,000 migrants to arrive in the coming days.

The sheer numbers arriving so quickly in Del Rio, a city of about 35,000 residents, has local officials worrying about how to feed and house thousands of migrants who for now are being forced to wait in the shade of the bridge.

“Dire circumstances require dire responses,” Lozano said. “There are people having babies down there [under the bridge], there are people collapsing out of the heat. They’re pretty aggressive, rightly so — they’ve been in the heat day after day after day.”

At an appearance in Fort Worth on Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott said the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security have told the state that the migrants will be relocated to Arizona, California, and perhaps Laredo. “But one thing that we know for a fact and that is, there’s nothing but uncertainty and indecision by the Biden administration about exactly what they’re going to do,” Abbott said.

Many of the migrants in Del Rio said they began their journey years ago, fleeing Haiti after previous disasters such as the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Junior Pacheco, 38, said he left Haiti for Chile, where he lived for five years before he made his way to the Texas-Mexico border in August. He said that after arriving in Mexico, police asked for his passport as he was exiting a charter bus and never returned it.

“There’s a lot of abuse on the way here. From people to the police, they steal our money, our passports. There are some people who get stranded on the way,” he said in a phone interview from Ciudad Acuña, where he was buying food, water, and a tent so his family could have somewhere to sleep.

Migrants cross the Rio Grande between the United States and Mexico in Ciudad Acuña, across the border from Del Rio. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for the Texas Tribune

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