TIJUANA, Mexico — After a weeklong bus ride from Honduras, Isabel Osorio Medina arrived in northern Mexico with the hope President Joe Biden would make it easier for people like him to get into the United States.

“It seems the new president wants to help migrants,” Mr. Osorio said as he got ready to check in to a cheap hotel in downtown Tijuana before heading to the U.S. “They’re saying he is going to help, but I don’t know for sure how much is true or not.”

The 63-year-old is among thousands of people who have come to the U.S.-Mexico border with the hope they will be able to ask for asylum and make their way into the U.S. now that former President Donald Trump is no longer in office.

While Mr. Biden has taken some major steps in his first weeks in office to reverse Mr. Trump’s hard-line immigration policies, his administration hasn’t lifted some of the most significant barriers to asylum-seekers.

In fact, it’s discouraging people from coming to the country, hoping to avoid what happened under both Mr. Trump and former President Barack Obama: border agents getting overwhelmed by migrants, including many Central Americans with children.

“Now is not the time to come,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a recent briefing, “and the vast majority of people will be turned away.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken struck a similar tone on Feb. 6 as he announced official steps to end Trump-era agreements with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala that required many asylum-seekers to seek refuge in one of those countries instead of the U.S.

“To be clear, these actions do not mean that the U.S. border is open,” Mr. Blinken said. “While we are committed to expanding legal pathways for protection and opportunity here and in the region, the United States is a country with borders and laws that must be enforced.”

That message hasn’t reached everyone.

More people have been arriving at a encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, a dangerous city just south of the Texas border where hundreds of asylum-seekers have been waiting under Mr. Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program.

It’s possible even more may come after the Biden administration announced Friday that it would slowly allow an estimated 25,000 people to enter the U.S. as their cases are reviewed. The first wave is expected Friday.

Walter Valenzuela, a 37-year-old Honduran, said he had been waiting in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, for months for a chance to either seek asylum or risk an illegal crossing.

For years, asylum-seekers who met the initial threshold of demonstrating a “credible fear” of persecution in their homeland could generally stay in the U.S. until an immigration judge decided whether they qualified for permanent residency, which can take years.

Trump administration officials believed many asylum claims were fraudulent or lacked merit, submitted by people simply looking to remain in the U.S. But the issue is murky as tens of thousands flee violent gangs, natural disasters, and political upheaval.

The Biden administration has signed several executive orders on immigration, including allowing in more refugees and establishing a task force to find the parents of about 600 children who were separated under Mr. Trump and still haven’t been reunited.

But the new White House hasn’t ended a public health order Mr. Trump issued at the start of the pandemic that allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection to immediately expel nearly everyone, including asylum-seekers.

Ms. Psaki said the government is still working to develop a “humane, comprehensive process” to evaluate people coming to the U.S.

“Asylum processes at the border will not occur immediately,” she said. “It will take time to implement.”

Alan Bersin, who held top positions dealing with border security during the Clinton and Obama administrations, warned that Mr. Biden is headed for a crisis if he releases all asylum-seekers into the United States. That would invite fraud and abuse, he said.

“There’s such a pressing sense in the advocate community that is controlling the Biden immigration agenda — they want to reverse all Trump actions,” he said.

And indeed, pressure is mounting.

The number of people apprehended at the border has increased since January, though it’s below some previous periods. Authorities say many are getting caught and returned multiple times.

Complicating matters, a law has taken effect in Mexico that prohibits holding children in migrant detention centers, and the U.S. has stopped sending back some families along parts of the border. CBP, which doesn’t have the capacity to hold families because of COVID-19, in recent weeks has released dozens of people into the U.S. with instructions to appear in court later.

Authorities fear that as word spreads of those releases, more people will come. And asylum is not the only immigration issue creating headwinds for Mr. Biden’s administration.

Texas and Arizona have both sued to stop Mr. Biden’s 100-day deportation moratorium, which a judge temporarily put on hold. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are complaining about proposed rules to focus on detaining and removing people in the country illegally who pose national security threats or have been convicted of more serious crimes.

Jon Feere, a senior adviser to ICE under Mr. Trump, argued that such moves are part of a larger pattern that the Biden administration will come to regret.

“When you send the message that you are not serious about immigration enforcement, you can’t act surprised when you see a massive influx of people that you have to manage,” he said.

Raul Ortiz, deputy chief of the Border Patrol, said last week that as a liaison to the Biden transition team, he found the staff to be “very attentive” to the issues. Some had experience with surges of asylum-seekers under Mr. Obama.

“This wasn’t uncharted waters,” Mr. Ortiz said in an interview produced by the Border Patrol. “It wasn’t like we were starting from scratch.”

The larger debate is lost on Mr. Osorio, who came to Tijuana because he heard Mr. Biden wants to help people like him. He says he intended to seek asylum based on the dangers he faced as an environmental activist protesting illegal logging in Honduras.

But because he can’t seek asylum at the official border crossing in San Diego, other migrants told him about a place he could try to cross illegally. He said if he encountered the Border Patrol, he would ask for asylum and see what happens.

“They already told us more or less how to do it,” Mr. Osorio said. “We’re going to take a look.”

Fox reported from Washington.

First Published February 15, 2021, 4:15pm

Source: https://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2021/02/15/Joe-Biden-immigration-asylum-seekers-US-Mexico-border-Donald-Trump-politics-Border-Patrol-ICE-Remain-in-Mexico-program/stories/202102150122

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The orders had been planned for Friday, according to the memo, and people familiar with discussions. But the White House has now pushed back the timeline and it remains unclear when it will take place.

Biden, a Democrat, has vowed to reverse many policies put in place by former Republican President Donald Trump, a process that could take months or years.

ASYLUM AND REGIONAL MIGRATION

Biden plans to undo some of Trump’s asylum restrictions and take actions to address the root causes of migration, a White House official said on Saturday during a United States Conference of Mayors virtual event.

Biden will unwind a Trump program known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), the official, Esther Olavarria, deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council, said in a recording reviewed by Reuters.

The Biden administration said last Wednesday it would end all new enrollments in the MPP program, which has forced more than 65,000 asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait for U.S. immigration court hearings. But it did not give more information on what would happen to the thousands of people currently in Mexico.

In the executive orders, Biden will call to end asylum agreements struck by the Trump administration with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, Olavarria said.

Biden will also restore a program that allows certain children in the three nations to apply for refugee status in the United States from their home countries, according to Olavarria.

The orders will call for the strengthening of asylum protections in Mexico and other countries so that migrants can seek refuge “closer to home,” she said.

Additionally, Biden plans to roll back a Trump rule that sought to block asylum seekers who pass through another country en route to the United States, according to a person briefed on discussions.

REUNITING FAMILIES SEPARATED BY TRUMP

Biden will create a task force to reunite migrant families who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border by Trump’s immigration policies, Olavarria said.

Parties in a lawsuit over the separations have been unable to reach the parents of more than 600 children, according to a court filing this month.

REVIEW OF LEGAL IMMIGRATION SYSTEM

Biden will issue an executive order that would remove barriers to legal immigration and promote citizenship, according to Olavarria.

The Biden administration will begin the process of reversing Trump’s “public charge” rule, which makes it harder for immigrants who are poor or need certain government benefits to secure residency and stay in the country, according to two people familiar with the plans.

Olavarria said on Saturday that Biden would rescind several Trump proclamations. She appeared to reference one that barred certain visa applicants who could not prove they had health coverage and two others that banned the issuance of many work and immigrant visas, which Trump said would protect American jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.

CHANGES TO THE REFUGEE PROGRAM

Biden is expected to lay out principles that will guide his administration’s global refugee policy in one of his executive orders.

He has pledged to raise annual refugee intake levels to 125,000, up from the record-low 15,000-person ceiling set by Trump for fiscal year 2021, which began on Oct. 1, 2020.

Biden is not expected to immediately raise the refugee limit. Instead, the Biden administration will follow a formal process that involves consulting with Congress, according to two people familiar with the plan.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-immigration-orders-factbox-idUSKBN29W2FD

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A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked President Biden’s attempt to put a moratorium on deportations for 100 days.

After Texas sued over the policy, the judge blocked Biden, via a temporary restraining order, from moving forward for 14 days.

Texas’ lawsuit claims that the administration would be violating an agreement it has with the Department of Homeland Security – and would require at least 180 days’ notice, as well as consultation, prior to implementing changes in immigration policy. It is unclear whether those terms are enforceable, but similar agreements were struck with several other states under the former administration.

CHAD WOLF: BIDEN IMMIGRATION ACTION ‘ABSOLUTELY’ GOES AGAINST THE LAW 

The U.S. district judge implemented a nationwide injunction because a geographically-limited order would not adequately protect Texas’ interests due to “the free flow of movement” of illegal aliens from other states.

Fox News exclusively reported over the weekend that an email sent last week to ICE officers called for stopping “all removals” and to “release them [undocumented immigrants] all, immediately.”

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Biden has pledged to move forward with a moratorium on deportations as his administration resets its approach toward U.S. immigration following the change in administration.

Noncitizens who have engaged in, or who are suspected to have engaged in, terrorism and espionage can still be deported.

The moratorium – which took effect on Friday – also does not apply to persons who were not physically present in the U.S. as of Nov. 1, 2020.

The Biden administration was planning to announce further guidance on the issue by Feb. 1.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-judge-blocks-biden-deportations

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