MIAMI.- Order and control at last on the southern border of USA? That is the president’s hope Joe Bidenunfavorable in the polls, to seek re-election, despite the fact that even the late asylum restrictions They show no sign of stopping the flow of migrants in the border area with Mexico.
Four days after the new restrictions approved by Biden go into effect, crossings at the border between the US and Mexico continue “practically the same”.
Hundreds of migrants, mainly from the countries of Central America, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti, keep alive the hope of achieving the American dream, in the midst of an environment of uncertainty.
“We understand why we have not seen an immediate drop (migrant crossing), but we also hope that as we continue to maximize enforcement of deportations, we will see that The impact will materialize more in the coming days“a senior Biden administration official told reporters.
Unprecedented migration
Since Biden’s arrival at the White House, they have entered the country more than 9.9 million migrants, according to data from the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP). These figures do not reflect the number of citizens who managed to enter through the blind spots of the border without being captured by the authorities.
In the last months of 2023, around 10,000 foreigners per day entered through the southern border, a number that in the month of April was reduced to an average of 8,500, although lower, it is still significant.
Biden’s measure, questioned by Democrats, who consider it extreme, and by Republicans, who call it “lukewarm” and “late”is just a washcloth in the face of an unprecedented crisis, until now, difficult to stop, despite the programs with which it has tried to promote legal and orderly migration.
“Even if they say they should close borders, they will never be able to close it because they want it or not, it is a source of work for many people,” he told the AFP the Guatemalan migrant Freddy Sánchez, 37, who entered American territory thanks to a breach in the border in the Californian desert.
Restrictions, an electoral measure
Like him, dozens of immigrants managed to cross the US borders to the small community of Jacumba Hot Springs, in San Diego, California, where they await the longed for asylumafter the president announced the new restrictions, to live life in “the promised land.”
On June 5, just one day after the new regulations went into effect, around 85 people risked their lives by jumping over the border wall into the US. Four of them, according to Mexican media, had to be taken to a hospital due to injuries.
Republicans and some analysts have described the border closure as an electoral measure by the national president, who bears the burden of an unprecedented immigration crisis in the last three years, which impacts national security and represents an additional cost of more than 600,000 million. of dollars to the country’s coffers.
Is closure possible?
These new Biden restrictions, which limit the delivery of migrants, are done by border agents, as they did initially to enter the country and request asylum, in a process that could take years, while cases continued to accumulate in the courts of immigration.
Now, migrants who entered through the border cities of Mexicali and Ciudad Juárez were being returned, although on a small scale.
However, Biden’s order is insufficient to definitively stop entry along the 3,050 kilometers of border it shares with Mexico, since new resources would be needed to strengthen security in the area.
“None of this solves long-term problems”said former senior Department of Homeland Security official during Barack Obama’s administration, John Sandweg.
In statements reported by The New York Times, he maintained that until Congress, which has blocked a bill that stipulates greater resources for immigration issues, does something, the “serious problems at the border” will continue.
Source: With information from CNN / The New York Times / AFP
