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Chile is updating its constitution for the 21st century. The US should follow its leadDavid AdlerThe US constitution used to be considered a model for democracies around the world – but its antiquated institutions and absence of rights have guaranteed its declining influence “Every constitution,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in a 1789 letter to James Madison, “naturally expires at the end of 19 years.” Two centuries after its expiration date, citizens of the United States are suffering the consequences of a constitution drafted by 55 men who owned hundreds of human slaves, thousands of acres in landed estates, and millions of dollars in inherited wealth. Fundamental rights denied, foundational institutions paralyzed and existential crises ignored: these are side-effects of a legal framework that has not been meaningfully amended in over a half-century.The US is not alone. Scores of constitutions around the world were written by dictators, colonizers and military occupiers to enshrine institutions that are undemocratic by design and unfit to cope with crises like a rapidly heating planet. In some cases, like the UK, the constitution was never actually written at all, setting the political system on a precarious foundation of norms and conventions that leaders like Boris Johnson have proven all too eager to discard. When a cross-party committee convened in 2013 to review the UK’s constitutional chaos, its recommendation was nothing short of radical: that the government should consider “preparations for a UK-wide constitutional convention”.But while both the US and the UK remain trapped in constitutional deadlock, the Republic of Chile has just concluded its own nationwide convention to replace the 1980 decree by the dictator Augusto Pinochet and his military government. The product of the convention is a visionary document that would not only update, expand and advance Chileans’ basic rights – to health, housing, abortion, decent work and a habitable planet – but also set a new standard for democratic renewal in the 21st century.Like that of the United States, the current Chilean constitution was written under extremely undemocratic conditions. Pinochet came to power in a bloody coup to overthrow President Salvador Allende, and set to work designing a constitution that would consolidate executive power, constrain democratic representation, and enshrine free market fundamentalism. Along with a clique of economists known as the “Chicago Boys” for their training at the University of Chicago, Pinochet set the country on a path of such extreme neoliberalization that Chile would become the only country in the world with a constitutionally privatized water system.The consequences of the Pinochet constitution were all too easy to predict – and will be too familiar to readers in the US from which its ideas were sourced. Inequality soared: Chile became the most unequal country in the OECD, with an income gap 65% higher than the OECD average; the combined wealth of its billionaires totals 25% of GDP. Debt exploded: Chile’s tuition fees rank among the highest in the world, trapping students in cycles of debt repayment that can last a lifetime. Precarity accelerated: the percentage of jobs on short-term contracts has grown to 30, while roughly half of all workers report being unable to save enough to fund their retirement. Even its famous system of privatized water crashed: millions of Santiago residents are regularly left without access to running water, as Chile moves into a period of severe water stress.In October 2019, millions of Chileans took to the streets to protest these intolerable conditions. Kicked off by a hike in public transportation fares by sitting president Sebastián Piñera, the protests quickly grew into a revolt against the country’s entire constitutional order – its neoliberal orthodoxy, its authoritarian governance, its absence of human rights protections that were on display in both Pinochet’s murderous regime and Piñera’s violent repression of the 2019 protests. “Constituyente o nada!” the protesters shouted: constituent assembly or nothing. One year later, Chileans turned out in record numbers to vote in a special plebiscite organized in the wake of the protest movement: 78% voted for a new constitution, and 79% for a convention of elected citizens to write it, rather than career politicians.At a time when democracies are ravaged by violent polarization, Chile’s convention has charted a path to peaceful renovation. Led by women, the convention brought together workers, Indigenous peoples and parties from across the political spectrum to draft a new constitution over the course of a year of careful deliberation. The result is a document that responds directly to the escalating crises of inequality, insecurity and a changing climate. The constitution establishes new universal public services for health, education, and clean water. It endows nature with rights and protects Chile’s glaciers, parks and big bodies of water from environmentally disastrous mining. And – four decades after Pinochet’s decree – it finally turns Chile into a full democracy, with gender parity in public institutions, self-determination for Indigenous peoples, collective bargaining for all workers and the right to vote for all Chileans over the age of 16.But the campaign to de-legitimate Chile’s constitution is already under way. Even before the convention had taken its seat, commentators at the Wall Street Journal had labeled it a “suicide mission”. Since then, a relentless “digital war” has been waged to discredit the new constitution by spreading lies and disinformation about its contents. One sitting Chilean senator falsely claimed that the constitution would change the country’s name, flag and national anthem, in a video that went viral across the country. Gender parity is mocked as “woke”. Worker rights are “divisive”. And Indigenous sovereignty is the path to an “Indigenous monarchy”. In its editorial instructing Chileans to vote against the new constitution, the Economist put the new text on a roll of toilet paper. The goal of the attacks is simple: to scare Chileans into a defense of an indefensible status quo.But Chileans are undeterred. After all, the Economist praised the “rapid success” of the Pinochet coup back in 1973, and most of the parties that presently call to reject the new constitution are the same ones that voted to keep Pinochet in power in the 1988 plebiscite that ended his rule. More than a month before the September vote, the coalition to support the new constitution is growing around the world, exciting everyone from feminists to evangelicals, US politicians to University of Chicago professors. “It’s kind of a miracle that it’s come this far,” said Tom Ginsburg, a University of Chicago professor. The “Apruebo” vote is still trailing in the polls, but enthusiasm for the plebiscite is on the rise. “This 4th of September, it will once again be the people who will have the last word on their destiny,” President Gabriel Boric said.But their destiny is ours, too. In the 20th century, the US constitution reigned as the model to be emulated by democracies around the world. No longer: its antiquated institutions and an absence of rights have guaranteed its declining influence. Now, Chile has shown the way to a new constitutional order – rich with rights, responsive to the needs of both people and planet – that can set an example for the world in the 21st century. Because, as even Thomas Jefferson recognized in 1789, “the earth belongs to the living, and not to the dead”. From Chile back to the US, may a new movement for democratic renewal now come to life.
David Adler is a political economist and general coordinator of the Progressive International
This article was amended on 28 July 2022 to reflect that Gabriel Boric is not part of the Apruebo campaign; as president, he can only advocate for participation, not a single side
TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS constitution and civil libertiesChileAmericasLaw (US)commentReuse this content More
Statehood or independence? Puerto Rico’s status at forefront of political debateUS lawmakers introduced a bill to determine the island’s status but how Puerto Rico should pave its path toward decolonization is the root of the debate Luz Rivera Sotomayor spent most of her days in church praying for her family’s health before she was diagnosed with dystonia in 2020. Two years after her diagnosis with the muscular system disorder, Rivera became bedridden at 59 and survives in Puerto Rico on what little she gets from a temporary program for low-income families.Because she lives in the US territory, Rivera is one of the thousands of Puerto Ricans who doesn’t qualify for the federal supplemental security income benefits intended to help people with disabilities in US states. In April, the supreme court reaffirmed in United States v Vaello-Madero that Congress is constitutionally allowed to treat territorial residents differently when extending federal benefits.“My sister has been blessed because someone in the community always comes around with what she needs,” said Jaqueline Rivera Sotomayor, who regularly takes care of Rivera Sotomayor, who lost her ability to speak. “But I can’t imagine what other people go through just to get by.”The consequences of Puerto Rico’s status has been on the forefront of political debates on the island in recent weeks, with a clash in opinions on whether the territory should become a US state, independent, or fall under a free association agreement.On Friday, US lawmakers introduced a bill that proposes a binding plebiscite – or direct electoral vote – to determine the island’s status. The draft was announced in May by the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer; Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner, Jenniffer González-Colon; and Representative Nydia Velázquez.The Puerto Rico Status Act would not include as an option the island’s current commonwealth status, a system that has lost support since the federal government established an unelected fiscal board in 2016, with authority to commandeer the local political branches, after the island entered bankruptcy.“In the aftermath of Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy, there appears to be a far-reaching consensus that the island’s colonial condition must come to an end,” said Rafael Cox Alomar, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia, who has done research and analysis focused on Puerto Rico’s status and history. “The idea that Puerto Rico ceased to be a colony in 1952 after the inauguration of its own constitution no longer stands.”But exactly how Puerto Rico should pave its path toward decolonization is the root of the island’s debate. The bill, which is highly unlikely to advance in the Senate, proposes the plebiscite take place in November 2023. Puerto Rico’s current administration, led by Governor Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia, believes becoming the 51st state would eradicate the island’s colonial status.Some statehood supporters believe the bill is redundant, since the island held a referendum in November 2020 and ended with 53% of the votes in favor of statehood. However, only about half of registered voters participated, and the referendum was not approved by the US Department of Justice under the Trump administration even before the vote took place.The opposing party to the island’s current administration, which has traditionally supported Puerto Rico’s commonwealth formula, is quickly losing support within the island and among its own members. The decades-old Popular Democratic party is expected to hold a meeting later this year to determine whether it supports the island’s territorial status or the option of free association, which puts into question the party’s future.“If you’re going to deal with colonialism, all sides have to agree the status quo is not the solution,” said Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, chairman of the US House of natural resources committee, which oversees affairs in US territories. After presenting the bill on Friday, Grijalva expects the committee to vote on it as soon as Wednesday.In June, Grijalva and other federal legislators held a public forum in Puerto Rico and heard dozens of testimonies from political party members, community advocates and interest groups to help legislators revise the proposed measure.Puerto Rican groups dedicated to mobilizing communities around the need for legislation that resolves the status issues were present in these discussions. The group Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora suggested better defining the economic and cultural consequences of statehood, while others advocated for the formation of a citizens’ assembly to determine the island’s future instead of the bill.“The people of Puerto Rico must be the protagonists of their process, it can’t be prewritten by someone else,” said Javier Smith, special projects coordinator at Vamos Puerto Rico, a community organizing group. “If we’re going to keep the same subordinate political and economic structures, we’re not really changing anything.”The forum came before the UN special committee on decolonization approved a draft resolution recognizing Puerto Rico’s right to self-determination and independence for the fortieth time. Dozens of independence supporters for Puerto Rico protested near the United Nations’ headquarters in New York later that day.Rivera Sotomayor, who is taking care of her sister in Adjuntas, said she welcomes any process that solidifies Puerto Rico’s status in relation to the US, one way or another. For now, she is relying on their mother’s Social Security benefits to help cover the costs of her sister’s medications.“This is terrible,” said Rivera Sotomayor. “When you have a loved one, bedridden like this and in need of medication and diapers, the situation gets frustrating.”TopicsPuerto RicoUS politicsAmericasfeaturesReuse this content More
John Bolton says he ‘helped plan coups d’etat’ in other countriesFormer national security adviser to Donald Trump says US Capitol attack was not a coup because it was not carefully planned John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Donald Trump and before that ambassador to the United Nations under George W Bush, said on Tuesday he helped plan coup attempts in other countries.January 6 testimony tells chilling tale of democracy hanging by a threadRead moreSpeaking to CNN after the day’s January 6 committee hearing, Bolton said it was wrong to describe Trump’s attempt to stay in power after the 2020 election as a coup.He said: “While nothing Donald Trump did after the election, in connection with the lie about the election fraud, none of it is defensible, it’s also a mistake as some people have said including on the committee, the commentators that somehow this was a carefully planned coup d’etat to the constitution.“That’s not the way Donald Trump does things. It’s rambling from one half-vast idea to another plan that falls through and another comes up.”His host, Jake Tapper, said: “One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.”Bolton said: “I disagree with that, as somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat, not here, but you know, other places. It takes a lot of work and that’s not what [Trump] did. It was just stumbling around from one idea to another.“Ultimately, he did unleash the rioters at the Capitol, as to that there’s no doubt, but not to overthrow the constitution, to buy more time to throw the matter back to the states to try and redo the issue.“And if you don’t believe that you’re going to overreact, and I think that’s a real risk for the committee, which has done a lot of good work.”Jake Tapper: “One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.”John Bolton: “I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coup d’etat, not here, but other places, it takes a lot of work.” pic.twitter.com/REyqh3KtHi— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 12, 2022
Tapper returned to Bolton’s remark about having helped plan coups.Bolton said: “I’m not going to get into the specifics.”Tapper asked: “Successful coups?”Bolton said: “Well, I wrote about Venezuela in in the book and it turned out not to be successful.“Not that we had all that much to do with it, but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president and they failed. The notion that Donald Trump was half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition is laughable.”Bolton devotes considerable space to Venezuela policy in The Room Where It Happened, his 2020 memoir of his work for Trump.In 2019, the US supported the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido’s call for the military to back his ultimately failed attempt to oust the socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, arguing Maduro’s re-election was illegitimate.Before Bolton joined the Trump administration, it was widely reported that Trump wanted to use the US military to oust Maduro. In August 2017, Trump told reporters: “We have many options for Venezuela, this is our neighbour.”Among other gambits, Bolton’s book describes work with the British government to freeze Venezuelan gold deposits in the Bank of England.In his newsletter, The Racket, Jonathan M Katz, author of the book Gangsters of Capitalism, said: “The United States has indeed sponsored and participated in lots of coups and foreign government overthrows, dating back to the turn of the 20th century [and] Bolton was personally involved in many of the recent efforts – in Nicaragua, Iraq, Haiti and others”.But, Katz added: “Generally, officials do not admit that sort of thing on camera.”The Room Where It Happened review: John Bolton fires broadside that could sink TrumpRead moreKatz wrote: “Keep in mind that throughout the 2019 crisis, Bolton insisted that the Trump administration’s support for … Guaidó … was anything but a coup. He literally stood in front of the White House at the height of the affair and told reporters: “This is clearly not a coup!”In those remarks, in April 2019, Bolton said: “We recognize Juan Guaidó as the legitimate interim president of Venezuela.“And just as it’s not a coup when the president of the United States gives an order to the Department of Defense, it’s not a coup for Juan Guaidó to try and take command of the Venezuelan military.“We want as our principal objective the peaceful transfer of power but I will say again, as [Trump] has said from the outset, and Nicolas Maduro and those supporting him, particularly those who are not Venezuelan, should know, all options are on the table.”On CNN, Tapper said: “I feel like there’s like this other stuff you’re not telling me.”Bolton said: “I think I’m sure there is.”TopicsJohn BoltonDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsVenezuelaAmericasnewsReuse this content More
President Joe Biden on Thursday said UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that he would step down as the UK’s head of government once Conservative Party members choose a successor will not put a damper on the close relationship between Washington and London.In a statement to The Independent, Mr Biden did not mention Mr Johnson or his impending exit from Number 10 Downing Street, but said the US and UK remain “the closest of friends and Allies” and stressed that “the special relationship” between the American and British people “remains strong and enduring”. “I look forward to continuing our close cooperation with the government of the United Kingdom, as well as our Allies and partners around the world, on a range of important priorities,” Mr Biden said. “That includes maintaining a strong and united approach to supporting the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Putin’s brutal war on their democracy, and holding Russia accountable for its actions”.The outgoing British leader, who was born in the US but renounced his American citizenship years ago, has had a warm relationship with Mr Biden since the American president assumed office in January 2021.At the 2021 Group of Seven summit in Cornwall — one of Mr Biden’s first trips abroad as president — Mr Johnson described his American counterpart as “a breath of fresh air” as the two men signed a “New Atlantic Charter” which “reaffirm[ed] their commitment to work together to realise our vision for a more peaceful and prosperous future” by building on the alliance cemented by Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill more than eight decades prior. Mr Johnson has also praised Mr Biden’s willingness to tackle climate change as an existential threat to humanity during a September 2021 visit to the White House.RecommendedThe two leaders have also worked closely together as they coordinated the west’s response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They also caused a row when the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia announced last year that Australia would purchase nuclear-powered, conventionally-armed submarines made with American and British technology. The move so incensed French President Emanuel Macron that he temporarily recalled the nation’s ambassador to the United States. But despite the friendly relations between the two leaders, White House officials have declined to weigh in on Mr Johnson’s political troubles, which they’ve characterised as an internal British matter that is out-of-bounds for public comment. More
The hosts of Fox & Friends have been mocked for criticizing Boris Johnson for being dishonest and refusing to resign after the programme spent years supporting former President Donald Trump. Host Steve Doocy said on Thursday that “what happened over the last number of months and years is the British people did not trust him. He would say one thing and would do something else, and then it would pop up in the tabloids”. “It’s a question of integrity,” he added. “He has refused to go even though people have been calling for him to hit the pavement for a while, because he would say, ‘look, I had a mandate. I had an additional 14 million votes from voters who voted for me in 2019. So I’m going to stick around’ and he stuck around until he saw the writing on the wall.”Doocy noted that more than “53 government officials called it quits. The government of the United Kingdom and of England was in dire need of somebody to run different cabinet positions and things like that”. “Apparently his assistants were trying to fill the positions as quickly as people would quit, but they couldn’t. And there were people who were in charge of security, the courts, technology, education, finance, Northern Ireland, and science. So clearly, that’s a lot of the government with nobody running it and so now he’s gonna leave,” Mr Doocy said. RecommendedOne of the co-hosts said Mr Johnson’s “problems really started with Covid – he wasn’t clear how he was going to handle Covid. Then he got Covid and he almost died. He said it was really touch and go. And his reaction to his own case with Covid was that he really went in the direction of the globalist lockdown, very serious, very stringent response. And then he was caught, of course, partying it up in what is now known as Partygate”. “Fox & Friends obliviously criticizing Boris Johnson for being untrustworthy, refusing to leave office, creating chaos, and mishandling Covid — after years of running interference for you know who — is pretty rich,” journalist Aaron Ruper tweeted in reference to Mr Trump. “It’s bizarre, is what it is, seeing that Johnson was the British version of Trump and Trump-approved,” one Twitter user responded. “I love the way she just threw ‘globalist’ in there. A word that has absolutely no relevance to anything they were talking about,” Jamie Mellor wrote. Recommended“Irony was murdered, resurrected, and then killed again about five different times in this clip. A classic,” Rupar added. More
Texas tragedy highlights migrants’ perilous journey to cross US border The number of migrant deaths in 2021 was 650, a stark reminder of the human cost of US immigration policiesThe deaths of 50 migrants – traveling from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras – in terrible conditions in Texas has cast a spotlight on the immense risks people are willing to take to cross the US border in search of a better financial life or escaping violence in their native countries.Fifty migrants found dead inside abandoned Texas trailer truckRead moreLaura Peña, the legal director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, represents asylum seekers at the border. Responding to the tragedy in San Antonio, she said both the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and President Biden have “utterly failed people who are trying to seek safety by crossing the border”.“The closure of borders are forcing people to take more dangerous routes. That’s just the facts. It’s resulted in thousands of deaths across the border … And it’s a direct result of these efforts to harden the border and criminalize people instead of investing in processing – simple processing of people who are trying to seek asylum and refuge at our ports of entry at our borders.”The processes Peña is referring to are the same ones used to allow more than 3,000 Ukrainian refugees to enter the US at the border of Mexico.She added: “We’ve been advocating for a dignified, humane process at the border, where people are not forced to risk their lives. We’ve seen the ability of the federal government to do that. We saw all the resources come to bear for our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, rapid humane processing at the border. But when it comes to Black and brown migrants, those same benefits are completely stripped away. They are not afforded across the board. It’s the underlying racism, and how and where both the federal and the state governments choose to militarize.”On Tuesday, Biden called the deaths “horrifying and heartbreaking”.“While we are still learning all the facts about what happened and the Department of Homeland Security has the lead for the investigation, initial reports are that this tragedy was caused by smugglers or human traffickers who have no regard for the lives they endanger and exploit to make a profit.“Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, as is political grandstanding around tragedy, and my administration will continue to do everything possible to stop human smugglers and traffickers from taking advantage of people who are seeking to enter the United States between ports of entry.”The San Antonio fire chief, Charles Hood, said the people found were “hot to the touch”, suffering from heatstroke and heat exhaustion.The peak of summer in San Antonio, where temperatures remain consistently in the 90s or higher, is no deterrent to those seeking work or fleeing persecution. Nor is the prospect of being discovered by border patrol agents. The result of the treacherous journey, however, is the gruesome image of stacks of bodies.The number of migrant deaths in 2021 was 650, the most since 2014. The figure is a stark reminder of the human cost of US immigration policies, which generally limit the number of migrants able to seek asylum.Congressman Joaquín Castro, who represents the district that covers San Antonio, called for ending Title 42, the pandemic-era policy invoked by the Trump administration that allows for turning away migrants without offering them the chance to seek humanitarian protection ostensibly to prevent the spread of contagious diseases like Covid-19.Castro argued that was an immediate aid to the infrastructure of US immigration, which has been overwhelmed.The tragedy in San Antonio tonight, the loss of life, is horrific. My prayers are with the victims, their families and the survivors being treated in our community. May God bless them. We must end Title 42 which has put desperate, oppressed people in grave danger of death. https://t.co/P0l8YmtHmq— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) June 28, 2022
More changes to US immigration law are imminent. The conservative-majority supreme court is also set to rule on Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which forces asylum seekers from Mexico to return home while awaiting the result of their pending immigration cases. Advocates argue the policy makes migrants face a forced return to the unsafe and vulnerable conditions from which they were escaping.And to avoid that, advocates say, migrants are willing to endure extremely dangerous conditions and risk everything in hopes of making the journey across the US border with Mexico.Biden tried to end the policy upon taking office, but was unsuccessful.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said: “If the supreme court prevents the Biden administration from ending Remain in Mexico, it will enshrine a new legacy for the United States – a legacy of turning its back on international commitments and sending people directly into harm’s way.”Though Monday’s grim discovery stood among the deadliest tragedies involving migrants, it is not the first of its kind in San Antonio. In 2017, 10 men traveling by tractor-trailer died, having gone without water, food and air conditioning for hours.Further south in Brooks county, Texas, 10 migrants traveling by van died after crashing into a utility pole last August.In Houston, six migrants died in an SUV after being chased by police through rainy weather in 2019.Advocates have long said that those episodes illustrate the risks migrants are willing to take to access the US and leave behind uncertain lives in their native countries.The Texas senator Ted Cruz and Governor Greg Abbott quickly blamed Biden for the most recent deaths in San Antonio. Abbott said: “These deaths are on Biden. They are a result of his deadly open border policies. They show the deadly consequences of his refusal to enforce the law.”The condemnation of the president comes after members of the Texas GOP criticized Democrats such as gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke for calling for more meaningful gun control measures after the shooting deaths of 19 children and two of their teachers at a school in Uvalde.Following news of the dead in San Antonio, O’Rourke echoed calls for expanding avenues for legal migration to discourage human smuggling rings responsible for organizing such dangerous trips across the border.TopicsUS newsUS politicsTexasUS immigrationMexicoAmericasUS-Mexico borderfeaturesReuse this content More
‘Traumatised and terrified, with nowhere else to go’: huge numbers of people stuck at US border Title 42, enacted under Trump and kept in place by Biden, has led to hundreds of thousands being denied their right to asylum since the start of the pandemicWhen Henry Ruiz* and Raquel Hernandez boarded a bus heading north to America with their two young children, they knew there would be no going back.It was June 2021, and a few weeks earlier Ruiz, a 28-year-old banana farmer from central Mexico, had been abducted by a group of armed men and taken to an isolated ranch where 15 others – 13 men and two women – were being held.The assailants were members of an ultra-violent Mexican cartel fighting to take over the local banana industry, and needed to recruit locals as informants and hitmen in order to push out a rival gang and community self-defense force.Ruiz was beaten with planks of wood and wire, leaving him with two broken ribs, gashes across his back and unable to see out of his right eye. Photos seen by the Guardian confirm the injuries.According to Ruiz, he and five others were forced to kill and bury the rest of the detainees while gang members filmed the macabre acts. They took Ruiz’s motorbike, wallet and bank details before abandoning him on the road near his home. His bank account was emptied a few days later.The family fled as soon as Ruiz was strong enough to travel and arrived in Sonoyta, a small border town in the state of Sonora, hoping to seek asylum in the US.But the border was closed due to Title 42 – an arcane public health order issued in March 2020 by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under pressure from the Trump administration.“We were traumatised and terrified, with nowhere else to go,” said Ruiz, tearing up while recounting his experiences.Title 42, which the Biden government has elected to keep in place, has led to hundreds of thousands of people being denied their legal right to seek asylum since the start of the pandemic.The order effectively replaced Remain in Mexico – another controversial Trump-era deterrent policy also known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) – and has used the pretext of Covid to authorize more than 1.4m expulsions at the border in the past two years.“By and large immigration policy hasn’t changed under Biden, and that’s the problem,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the Washington-based American Immigration.Across the border, huge numbers of people are stuck – unable to move forward or go back.Ruiz said: “Title 42 has prevented us from living, everyday I wake up and nothing has changed. But the pandemic is just an excuse, as if people without papers can get Covid and those with papers are immune.”For the past eight months, the family has lived in a shelter, unable to venture more than a few blocks in fear of being apprehended by Mexican authorities or criminals. Their daughter, a bright shy girl with a big smile who just turned seven, misses school and her grandparents; their one-year-old son recently learned to walk.“I don’t know whether to cry or scream, we’re stuck and have no idea when this will end,” said Hernandez, 23, Ruiz’s wife.Sonoyta is an unremarkable desert town with 20,000 people, a booming asparagus industry, and a minor border crossing popular with American snowbird retirees and tourists heading to the beach.The town also has four shelters where almost 200 Mexicans and Central Americans had been stuck for months or more, hoping the Biden administration would rescind title 42.But last month, about a third left after immigration attorneys visiting the migrant resource centre told them that the border would likely remain shut unless pending litigation succeeded in exempting families from title 42.It’s not clear where they all went, but some tried their luck seeking asylum at other border crossings like Reynosa, Tamaulipas (which borders Phar, Texas), where the state governor banned Biden from expelling families with children under seven. Others paid coyotes or smugglers to cross the Sonoran desert – where thousands of people have died trying to traverse the remote, punishing terrain.“Title 42 has nothing to do with Covid, it’s a terrific vehicle for stopping immigration,” said John Orlowski from Shelters for Hope, a non-profit which helped set-up the resource centre that provides meals, clothes, internet and medical care. “For people here the situation is worse under Biden: there’s no progress, few exceptions, and no updates.”In essence, title 42 has prohibited the vast majority of Mexicans and Central Americans from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – the countries which historically account for most migrants and refugees – from being allowed to seek asylum in the US.Across the southern border, just over half of all arrivals have been turned away and expelled to Mexico or flown home on charter flights since the start of the pandemic, including thousands of Haitian asylum seekers. (Millions of Americans and those with visas enter the country overland and by plane every month.)But in south-west Arizona, where Trump constructed a 30ft border wall across the Sonoran desert through sacred Indigenous land and protected national parks, more than 80% of people have been expelled without the opportunity to make their case.“The Tucson sector has one of the highest expulsion rates along the border and the exemptions have no rhyme or reason which leaves people desperate. The Biden administration keeps hiding behind the CDC but the evidence suggests that title 42 has become part of the deterrent policy, and has nothing to do with public health,” said Reichlin-Melnick.There’s a major US customs and border protection (CBP) station between Sonoyta and Ajo, Arizona – a former mining community now popular with retirees, artists and humanitarian groups.But desperate people do desperate things, and this area has seen the highest level of desert deaths ever recorded.On a hot cloudless day last week, the Guardian accompanied volunteers from Ajo Samaritans on a tough hike to drop gallons of water and cans of beans in two remote areas where people are currently passing through.It was deep into the desert – a two-hour drive from Ajo, followed by a nine-mile round trip on foot through Organ Pipe Cactus national monument and Cabeza Prieta wildlife refuge – with virtually no shade. In the summer, temperatures regularly top 100F (38C).As migrants are forced to take longer, harder routes to avoid surveillance technology and border patrols, humanitarian groups struggle to keep up and get water to the right places.But amid the vast desolate cacti forest there were signs of recent human activity: empty energy drink cans, a pair of ripped beige jeans, a black cardigan and several worn out carpet shoes – makeshift denim slippers to avoid leaving footprints. Three gallons of water left by the volunteers a week earlier – their first drop at this location – were gone.The group came across two degraded bones in separate locations. Each was photographed and sent to the Pima county coroner, the location tagged on GPS, and the spot marked with a dated red ribbon. This was followed by a moment’s silence to reflect on the 3,830 immigrants who have died in the Arizona Sonora desert, and the disappeared not yet found.The coroner later confirmed that neither bone was human. Still, two degraded human remains have been found during water drops by these volunteers in the past fortnight. In January, 15 bodies were found across the desert, most months after they had died, according to Humane Borders and Pima county. In 2021, 226 mostly recently deceased bodies were recovered, a record high.“This isn’t just about title 42 or Remain in Mexico, it’s the prevention through detention (PTD) policy and continued increase in militarization of the border since 1994, which has forced people further and further into the desert. The PTD legislation is designed to kill people, and since its implementation the number of deaths has increased every year,” said Jo, a seasoned volunteer who asked for her surname be withheld.In his 2022 State of the Union address, Biden’s promise to reform immigration was met with derision by advocates.“President Biden is not just carrying out the toxic, white supremacist legacy of the Trump era, but unbelievably in some instances he has doubled down,” said Erika Andiola of the advocacy group Raices, in response to the speech.Both the White House and the CDC recently relaxed guidance on Covid public health measures as part of the “new phase” of the pandemic, without mentioning title 42.Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders USA, said: “The Biden administration is promoting a policy of learning to live with the virus, yet continues applying title 42 to turn away people seeking protection in the US … This is an outrageous double standard.”While the administration asked the supreme court to overturn a lower court decision blocking the end of Remain in Mexico, it has also expanded the pool of immigrants to which the policy applies. The CDC, which exempted unaccompanied children from title 42 soon after Biden took office, said it continues to review whether the order remains necessary to protect the public health every 60 days.Back in Sonoyta, Ruiz and Hernandez don’t have the money to pay a coyote to try and cross the dangerous desert or even get them to a different port of entry where they may be allowed to apply for asylum. Even if they could borrow the money, there’s no way of knowing if they would be granted a rare exemption or simply turned away.Ruiz said: “I had a good job, we were happy. But now we have no choice, we must wait for an opportunity to sit down with someone and explain what happened and why we can never go back.”*Names have been changed for safetyTopicsUS immigrationMexicoUS politicsAmericasJoe BidenDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More
