Step.- Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday that the Biden administration plans to announce US-Mexico border preparations next week in anticipation of an influx of migrants after the White House lifts pandemic-related restrictions on May 11.
Mayorkas declined to provide details about the government’s efforts, but said immigration detention centers would have extra beds available to house immigrants facing possible deportation.
“I think next week we’ll have more to say about our preparation and some of the things that we’re going to do,” Mayorkas told reporters at DHS headquarters in Washington.
The large number of migrants crossing the southern border of the United States remains a political liability for President Biden ahead of his potential 2024 re-election bid, presenting his administration with immediate logistical challenges. Administration officials are anxious to avoid a repeat of the footage in September 2021, when a mass crossing of Haitian immigrants into Del Rio, Texas, overwhelmed US authorities and sparked chaos.
Troy Miller, acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner, told lawmakers Wednesday that he is preparing for illegal crossings to double to more than 10,000 a day after May 11, the date the administration chose. Biden to end emergency health restrictions known as Title 42. The policy allows authorities to quickly remove migrants back to Mexico or their home countries without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum.
“We’re certainly going to see higher numbers than we see today,” Miller said during a House subcommittee budget hearing.
Miller cited UN estimates that more than 660,000 migrants are in Mexico. That includes at least 200,000 Haitians and Venezuelans, groups that have been pouring into the United States in record numbers since Biden took office.
Since March 2020, DHS has relied on Title 42 policy as its primary enforcement tool, removing more than 2 million migrants back to Mexico or their countries of origin. But Biden officials are facing pressure from immigrant advocates and some Democrats who are calling for an end to the policy they see as a holdover from the Trump administration’s tougher approach.
DHS officials also blame the Title 42 policy for encouraging repeated illegal crossing attempts because immigrants don’t face the threat of federal prosecution and prison time they would under standard immigration rules. Lifting Title 42, Biden officials say, is key to restoring the legal consequences they need to deter trespassing.
Previous attempts by the Biden administration to lift Title 42 have been blocked in federal court by Republican state officials who argued that their budgets would suffer from a large influx of newcomers in need of health care, education and other public services.
Biden officials say they now have a clear path to ending Title 42 because the president lifted the coronavirus public health emergency that formed the underlying basis for border restrictions. Unless last minute court ruling, the policy will expire on May 11.
“Biden’s completion of Title 42 next month will cause an even greater increase in record illegal border crossings,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, wrote on Twitter Thursday, saying he was sending “specialized units” to the border, including the El Paso area, where crossings have picked up considerably in recent weeks.
“Texas will use all available tools to secure our border,” Abbott wrote.
Miller, the acting CBP commissioner, said officials will try to rein in the surge with “enhanced expedited removal,” an expedited removal process for those who don’t qualify for humanitarian refuge.
But, he warned, “it will take time” for the deportations to have a deterrent effect.
The Biden administration has a new enforcement tool that it is preparing to use: new measures that make it easier for the government to deport immigrants seeking asylum. Migrants who cross the border illegally or do not apply for protection in other countries that they cross on their way to the US border would face a presumption of ineligibility for asylum, under the proposed rule.
Mayorkas said the administration was still evaluating public comments on the proposed rule, but hoped it would go into effect before May 11. He also said the Biden administration has yet to decide whether to resume detaining migrant parents and children arriving as part of a family. group: a practice that DHS ended in 2021.
With information from The Washington Post.
