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      Border crossings reportedly decrease after Title 42 rules scrapped

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      Crossings at the US border with Mexico have dropped 50% after Title 42 restrictions ended at the end of Thursday and the Biden White House implemented an arguably tougher immigration policy, American homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Sunday.Mayorkas’s remarks on Sunday were a defense of the policy which replaced the expired measure that allowed border officials to expel migrants 2.7m times to their home country or Mexico without hearing their asylum claims, ostensibly to limit the spread of Covid-19.Advocates have argued that the new Biden restrictions mimic two Donald Trump-era policies, but Mayorkas defiantly touted the updated measures, saying on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the “US Border Patrol has experienced a 50% drop in the number of encounters versus what we were experiencing earlier in the week before Title 42 ended”.The rules now bar migrants from asylum if they don’t request refugee status in another country before entering the US. Mayorkas added that, on Friday, border patrol officers had detained 6,300 migrants and about 4,200 on Saturday, down from more than 10,000 “before the end of Title 42 earlier last week”.Mayorkas’s cited reduction in border crossings is what the administration expected when announcing the new asylum restriction. Mayorkas had previously said “the border is not open”, attempting to send a clear message to migrants on the Mexican side. He had also said that those who don’t pursue legal pathways to the US could face a “five-year ban on re-entry and potential criminal prosecution”.The numbers appeared to be an early projection of what could happen in the upcoming weeks and months amid the Biden administration’s new border policy. In some areas at the border such as Texas’s Rio Grande valley, agents apprehended 1,133 migrants, representing a 66% decrease as compared with the highest mark, 3,300, during the last fiscal year in the area, according to chief border patrol agent Gloria Chavez.Nonetheless, there were still signs of the border attracting prospective migrants. More than 1,500 miles (2,400km) west, near the San Ysidro port of entry in California, hundreds of people were sitting on cardboard boxes on a sloping hill between the two barriers that form the border walls.Those people – mostly women and children – were on US soil, just steps away from Tijuana, Mexico, having crossed the actual border between the two countries. But they were stuck in an area between two 30ft (10-meter) walls, waiting at the time to be processed by border patrol. “When we first came out here the first few days, there were maybe 100, 150 – then gradually, it started to increase to 200, 250,” said Robert Vivar, an immigration missioner with the San Diego Episcopal diocese. “On a daily basis, [border patrol agents] come in and go and take women and children for processing.”Friends of Friendship Park Committee members, such as Vivar and Pedro Rios, along with other activists and observers, called it an “open-air detention center”. There were few visible services: just one portable toilet for 400 to 800 people.Activists insisted they have seen an increase in the number of people showing up in the last week. The agency said it had nearly 25,000 migrants in custody on Thursday. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they would increase the number of beds by several thousand.However, the scene between the border walls was orderly. Children smiled through the thick, rusted bollards at volunteers who handed out crayons and notepads just three days after Mexico celebrated Mother’s Day and one day before the US recognized the holiday.One young boy squeezed a new stuffed animal tightly.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionReligious groups and nonprofits in San Diego have organized an impromptu service site on the Mexican side of the wall that included a charging table for phones handed through the wall, and bins of donations – toilet paper, diapers, sanitary pads, first aid items, clothing and food.There were rows of water bottles lined up in the barrier. Volunteers kept arriving throughout the afternoon: families dropped off donations, high schoolers showed up to hand out food and a minister walked along a stretch of the wall to get individual requests from new arrivals. People who spoke Spanish, French, Arabic and English came to the wall to ask for jackets, warm pants and socks as the sun set and the California desert turned cold.A half mile to the west, border patrol agents monitored a men’s encampment on a windy hill. Volunteers loaded donations, mainly blankets and tarps, on to the agency’s trucks that offered to drive them up to the men’s group. Some of the attendees confirmed to the Guardian that the donations were delivered. Organizers are less certain about where people ended up when the border patrol took groups of 60 to 70 people for processing from either camp.A federal judge in Florida on Friday blocked a Biden policy of expediting the release of some migrants to prevent overcrowding in border patrol facilities. Consequently, the administration asked the judge, Kent Wetherell, to pause his ruling because it could force border patrol agents to decline arrests in order to mitigate the overcrowding conditions.Wetherell denied the Biden administration’s request, dismissing it as “borderline frivolous”. The Biden White House has said it plans to appeal the ruling. More

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      Title 42 migration restrictions have ended, but Biden’s new policy is tougher

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      As the Title 42 pandemic-era rule ended at midnight on Thursday, Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security and a former Cuban refugee, issued a stern warning to would-be migrants, saying: “People who arrive at the border without using a lawful pathway will be presumed ineligible for asylum.”In many ways, Mayorkas’s statement directly contradicted some of the promises Joe Biden made as a candidate during the 2020 presidential election. Then Biden had pledged to dismantle Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda, calling the numerous restrictions his rival enacted to shut off access to the US asylum system “cruel”.After taking office, Biden reversed some of Trump’s border policies, including a program that required asylum-seekers to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities while their cases were reviewed by US courts.But for more than a year, Biden kept, and defended in court, Trump’s most sweeping border restriction: the Title 42 emergency order that allowed agents to cite the Covid-19 pandemic to quickly expel migrants without hearing asylum claims.The Biden administration in 2022 tried to phase out Title 42, but was blocked by a lawsuit filed by Republicans in 19 states. By the time it ended – due to the expiration of the Covid-19 public health emergency – Title 42 had been used to expel migrants over 2.7m times from the US southern border, according to government statistics.But Biden is now replacing Title 42 with an arguably tougher, more restrictive policy. His administration on Friday started implementing a rule barring migrants from asylum if they don’t request refugee status in another country before entering the US.Advocates suggested that such a restriction mimics two Trump-era policies known as the “entry” and “transit” asylum bans which were consequently blocked by courts. As a result, the new restrictive border control has already been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrants’ rights groups in federal court.“This new rule is no less illegal or harmful. It will effectively eliminate asylum for nearly all non-Mexican asylum seekers who enter between designated ports of entry, and even for those who present at a port without first securing an appointment,” the complaint says.Thousands of migrants anticipating the end of Title 42 crossed into the US in record numbers this week along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. They gathered on the banks of the Rio Grande and gates near the border wall, waiting for their turn to be let into US soil.Nestor Quintero, who crossed the US border near El Paso, Texas, only to be expelled to Tijuana, recently returned to Ciudad Juárez, scared that once Title 42 was lifted, his chances to give his daughters a “better and safer life” would be diminished.Unable to secure an appointment using a government cellphone app known as CBP One for over a month, the Venezuelan decided to surrender himself along with his family at gate 47 at the border wall in El Paso last week.“We were detained for six days and then were given documents by the [immigration] officials,” said Quintero, 35, who left Venezuela after an opposition politician he had worked for disappeared.“We have a [court] date in September this year, but now we only worry about eating. We have no money and we are hungry.”Biden’s asylum restriction, announced the same day Quintero’s family was released from border patrol custody, could have led to them being deported and banned from entering the US for five years. If they attempted to re-enter the US, they would have faced criminal prosecution.One of the only ways to avoid facing deportation under the strict asylum rule is to secure an appointment to enter the US through the government app. In its first four months, over 83,000 individuals have successfully scheduled an appointment through CBP One, a DHS official told the Guardian.CBP recently announced changes to the app, increasing the number of appointments available to approximately 1,000 a day from 740. That could be an option for some of the estimated 60,000 migrants who the border patrol chief, Raul Ortiz, said are waiting in northern Mexico, but it is unclear how many are willing to wait.The number of migrants stranded in Mexico could also increase further due to the new policies. The Mexican government has agreed to continue accepting tens of thousands of Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan deportees from the US.Shelter directors in Mexico told the Guardian they are at capacity.“This agreement means that more than 360,000 people could come to a country that doesn’t have a federal or state system to help everyone,” said Rafael Velásquez, the country director for Mexico at the International Refugee Committee.In its effort to dissuade migrants from travelling north, the Biden administration has also partnered with the Colombian and Panamanian governments to create regional processing centers to screen migrants who could be eligible to enter the US legally. The White House is also allowing up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to fly to the US each month, as long as they have American financial supporters.Just before Mayorkas’s statement on the termination of Title 42, a federal judge in Florida blocked a Biden policy of expediting the release of some migrants to prevent overcrowding in porder patrol facilities. The agency said it had nearly 25,000 migrants in custody on Thursday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said it will increase the number of beds by several thousand.On the evening of 11 May, Quintero, who along with his wife and daughters were released from a detention center in El Paso, reached out to the Venezuelan relative he left behind in Ciudad Juárez, worried about his whereabouts.“He was sad because he is now alone in Mexico,” said Quintero, whose final destination is Chicago, but his court appointment is in Texas. “He thinks he got deported because he came by himself, with no children, to the US.” More

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      ‘The border is not open’: US immediately replaces Title 42 with strict new rules

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      The US late on Thursday ended pandemic-era restrictions at the US-Mexico border that blocked many migrants from their right to claim asylum in the US – but immediately replaced the so-called Title 42 restrictions with sweeping new policies designed to deter or even physically prevent people from crossing the border without permission.In an increasingly hard line from the Biden administration, the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, said on Thursday evening that 24,000 border patrol agents and officers had been sent to the border to enforce US laws, adding: “The border is not open.“Starting tonight, people who arrive at the border without using a lawful pathway will be presumed ineligible for asylum. We are ready to humanely process and remove people without a legal basis to remain in the US,” he said.The secretary added on Friday morning, appearing on CNN, of migrants arriving at the southern border: “We are taking them into our custody, we are screening and vetting them and if they do not have a basis to remain, we will remove them very swiftly.”Additionally, the state department announced a new website aimed at informing migrants how to access legal pathways into the US. The site, MovilidadSegura.org, was created with help from the UN Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration and other groups.In the hours before the new regulations went into effect, thousands of migrants waded through rivers, climbed walls and scrambled up embankments on to US soil, hoping to be processed before the new system went into effect at midnight US eastern time.In Matamoros, Mexico, at the eastern end of the border close to the Gulf of Mexico, groups crossed the Rio Grande river in chin-high water. Some carried tiny babies and bags of belongings above their heads to make it into Brownsville, Texas, to ask for refuge.They clutched cellphones above the water to light the way toward the US but, behind coils of razor wire, US authorities shouted for the migrants to turn back.As small children, tied together by their parents to stop them being washed to their deaths in the treacherous river, scrambled up the bank wearing brightly colored inflatable rings from the crossing, uniformed soldiers pointed back where they had come from and refused to part the wire to let them come in and exercise their right to seek asylum.“Be careful with the children,” an official shouted through a megaphone. “It is especially dangerous for the children.”The expired rule, known as Title 42, was in place since March 2020. It allowed border officials to quickly return asylum seekers back over the border on grounds of preventing the spread of Covid-19.While Title 42 prevented many from seeking asylum, it carried no legal consequences. After Thursday, migrants face being barred from entering the US for five years and possible criminal prosecution.In El Paso in west Texas, hundreds of migrants camped out on downtown streets trying to figure out where to go next after crossing the border from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.The first moments of the end of Title 42 in Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican twin city to El Paso, were met with initial silence.It was almost as if nothing had changed for the 500 migrants hoping to turn themselves in to US authorities outside Door 42 between Juárez and El Paso, a gate in the tall border barrier.The group had been waiting since late afternoon, surrounded by Texas national guard and border patrol agents, and entrapped by barbed wire.Throughout the afternoon and into the night, small groups were slowly allowed into the country, while the rest stood by.The hot afternoon grew colder as soon as the sun set. With no belongings, many struggled to keep warm. Their only option: dust-filled blankets, jackets and sweaters that migration authorities provided from a dumpster.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn the dark of the night, cellphones were alight as migrants attempted to book one of the few asylum appointments available online through an app administered by US federal authorities, called CBP One.Donald Trump, an anti-immigration hardliner, implemented the Title 42 public health rule in 2020 when the pandemic hit, but it was continued and even expanded by Joe Biden, despite campaign promises of a fairer and more humane system at the border. The policy has faced court battles and criticism from left and right.The order authorized border officials to immediately remove migrants, including people seeking asylum, overriding their normal rights. The Biden administration announced in January it was ending the declared national emergencies linked to the coronavirus spelling the end of using Title 42 to deal with immigration.Immigration advocates represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a legal challenge against the new asylum regulations on Thursday, minutes before they took effect.The groups said the Biden regulation “dramatically curtails the availability of asylum in the United States” and mirrored similar Trump-era policies blocked in court.Also on Thursday night, a federal judge in Florida blocked releases of migrants who have not yet got a date to appear in court, saying they were similar to a policy previously prohibited in March due to a failure to follow proper regulatory procedures. CBP did not respond to a request for comment.In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said it would comply with the court order, while the federal agency, echoed by Mayorkas on Friday morning, called it a “harmful ruling”.CBP said it “will result in unsafe overcrowding … and undercut our ability to efficiently process and remove migrants.”Judge Kent Weatherell blocked the releases for two weeks.Later on Friday it appeared that US authorities had taken up to 1,000 people who had been waiting to enter El Paso away for detention and processing in centers further along the border, to try to prevent a crush, CNN reported.Overcrowding fears are rising since the Florida court ruling will mean authorities having to hold many people for longer, until they have a court date. Processing under Title 42 was faster, with many quickly expelled, CNN reported.However immigration advocates worry that even the longer asylum processing in border facilities will be too hasty to be fair. More

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      ‘This was my last try’: dismay at US border as Title 42 ends and little changes

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      “My plan is to give up,” Fernando Jesús Manzano, 32, from the state of Falcón, Venezuela, said dejectedly as he gazed at the hundreds of fellow migrants waiting to turn themselves in to US migration authorities as Thursday turned into Friday and a new policy era at the US-Mexico border.Manzano arrived at “Door 42”, a gate along the border barrier in El Paso, west Texas, shortly before the expiration of Title 42, a Trump-era rule implemented during the coronavirus pandemic that allowed the US to turn away migrants at its border with Mexico without allowing them to exercise their right to seek asylum.The man was too late. US Customs and Border Protection, as well as Texas national guard soldiers, had already set up concertina wire and were heavily patrolling the area where Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, meets its twin city across the border, El Paso, by the time he arrived.The troops in camouflage, holding their rifles across their bodies in an intimidating stance, were not allowing him or any other migrants to approach the gate to request asylum.The crowd of about 500 people at this one site was neatly organized into two groups: single men in one and families in the other. Separating them were 15 portable restrooms and two large dumpsters where all of their belongings had been discarded.The US authorities expect migrants being processed at the border not to be encumbered by the small pieces of luggage many may have carried for months on dangerous overland trips from Central and South America, through Mexico to the border.“This was my last try. I’ll have to find a job in Juárez to save for a ticket back home, and return defeated,” Manzano said.Manzano, a professional barber, said that two months ago he fled Venezuela, which has been abandoned by more than 7 million of its citizens in the last eight years amid the political and economic crisis of Nicolás Maduro’s regime.He came desperately seeking better opportunities for himself, his wife and two infant children, in contrast to growing poverty in Venezuela where money, he said, was never enough no matter how hard he worked.Frustrated, he fought back tears as he recalled the two times he previously crossed the US border with Mexico in the last month without permission and was expelled back to Mexico by the authorities.The last time, he found a lawyer in the US to help him and was on his way to New York, when agents at a migration checkpoint told him the forms he had filled out were not valid.At the border more people arrived as the night progressed. On the bank of the Rio Grande 30 more people sat quietly, all hoping authorities would let them in last minute.“No pueden entrar [you can’t come in],” a Texas national guard soldier shouted across as he adjusted a coil of the concertina razor wire marking the line between the waiting people and America. At first his action prompted some to believe they would be let in, but then they all listened and sat back down.When the clock struck 10pm local time, midnight on the US east coast, the exact moment Title 42 expired, the atmosphere at the gate in the tall border barrier remained tensely silent.Only sporadically, when small vans arrived at the gate from the US side to pick up migrants who had been allowed through and take them elsewhere for processing, would migrants clap and cheer for a few seconds.But as the night progressed, the cold did too. Temperatures dropped enough for those waiting at the gate to want a second layer of clothing. The most readily available were the sweaters, jackets and blankets in the two dumpsters where migrants had discarded all of their belongings earlier in the evening.Some grabbed the items but shook them repeatedly to get rid of the thick layer of dust and debris covering them before putting them on.“They’re not letting us in, I don’t know why,” said Oscar Adrián Izaguirre Brito, 20, a mechanic from Caracas, Venezuela.Izaguirre Brito arrived at the gate thinking the end of Title 42 meant he would be able to cross to the US that night but was met with disappointment when he arrived.“I’m tired and I want to cry, I can’t keep talking,” Izaguirre Brito said.After describing himself as desperate, he explained that he was the oldest of 10 siblings and that his parents rely on him for support.He’s made multiple attempts at crossing the border, but this was the first time he had planned to turn himself in. The last time he was expelled for going across without permission, he said, was Wednesday night and then, when border patrol agents released him back into Mexico, three armed men robbed him and took his cellphone, he said. His parents still don’t know he’s in Mexico again, he added.Because he has a permit to work in Juárez, Izaguirre Brito will go back to the car repair shop he had been working at before crossing the border last week, trying to save money to buy a new phone. With it, he would be able to try to get one of the very limited appointments for an asylum interview through the US’s CBP One app.Joe Biden’s new hardline border policies, heavily criticized by immigration advocates and progressives, were starting to bite.“If I am given the opportunity, I will take it and take full advantage of it,” Izaguirre Brito said. More

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      Fear, anger and hope as Texas border city mourns migrants killed by truck

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      A vigil in Brownsville mourning eight men killed when a car crashed into migrants waiting at a bus stop drew local residents and migrant families on Monday evening expressing a mix of grief, anger, hope and love in the shaken border city.“My son is my whole life, and that man may have taken it,” a Venezuelan mother, Marilín de los Ángeles Medero Piña, lamented, sobbing desperately into the microphone.As the heat of the day began to cool, about 300 people gathered at Linear Park in downtown Brownsville at the eastern end of the US-Mexico border.The day before, a local man with an extensive criminal history – whom witnesses said was shouting anti-immigrant insults – had smashed into a group of people when he drove an SUV through a red light near a migrant shelter, killing eight and injuring 10 more.Medero Piña’s son, Héctor David Medina, 24, is missing and his family is trying to establish if he is among those injured or killed.“Help us, please. I want to find my son,” Medero Piña appealed to the crowd. “One moment they tell me he’s alive and the next that he’s dead.”Many clustered around the stricken mother, offering prayers, hugs and donations. With her were her husband and three other children. All wept, recounting how local police couldn’t tell them whether Medina was dead or alive.George Alvarez, 34, was charged on Monday with manslaughter. Investigators are yet to determine whether the crash was intentional and are awaiting toxicology reports. Brownsville authorities have not yet been able to name those killed.Among the speakers at the vigil were two Venezuelan men who survived the attack on Sunday.“I know God exists because he gave me another chance to live,” said Luis Herrera, one of the survivors.Unable to hold back his tears, Herrera thanked the people of Brownsville for their kindness.“Not all people are bad,” Herrera said. “This is a beautiful community.”According to Herrera and other witnesses, Alvarez yelled anti-immigrant statements and asked why so many migrants were “invading” the city.“It’s because the country I longed for, and once had, doesn’t exist any more,” said Crismar García, 34, from the state of Táchira in crisis-gripped Venezuela, who has been in Brownsville for a year navigating her asylum process, during the vigil.The strong sense of grief pervading migrants in the community for the previous 24 hours was for some surpassed by fear.Ronny García, 35, and Jesús Moreno, 35, both from the state of Bolívar in Venezuela, worried they will encounter more tragedy in the near future, after witnessing Sunday’s events.“Honestly, we’re scared,” said García. “Anything could happen to us.”Moreno explained how they believe migrants have become “dirty business,” as they had been repeatedly taken advantage of and blackmailed in their months-long overland journey to the US.“Especially in this part of Texas, close to the border – migrants have become cannon fodder,” Moreno said.Police are investigating reports of a man with a gun turning up at the Ozanam Center migrant shelter near the crash site on Monday, according to a local news outlet.With Title 42, a Covid-era government restriction on immigration, set to expire at just before midnight on Thursday, residents are concerned there will be a fresh influx of migrants to the city that will be overwhelming, even though most are aiming just to pass through.Last week the city declared a state of emergency – as did El Paso, in west Texas, where an estimated 2,000 people are stuck on the streets after crossing the border seeking refuge, and shelters are full.Marisela Camarillo, 53, a retired school teacher and lifelong Brownsville resident present at the vigil, said she thought there was “absolutely no way” her city was ready for what may unfold on Thursday and Friday.“It’s not the fact that migrants are coming that’s concerning, it’s the fact that we’re not ready,” Camarillo said. “We don’t have the resources, we’re not equipped, and the federal government is not stepping up.”The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, announced on Monday the deployment of what his office calls a tactical border force, a new military unit of the Texas guard specifically assembled to “intercept, repel and to turn back” migrants at the border.“That’s not what the state guard should be used for,” Camarillo said. “We should have been preparing for this all this time.”However, Victor Maldonado, executive director of the Ozanam Center, said he was fully prepared with extra beds and resources. He also assured there would be collaboration with the local authorities, religious organizations, and non-profits to guarantee safety, he said.Sister Norma Pimentel, a well-known nun and immigrants’ advocate in the area, who is the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, offered some words of encouragement at the vigil.“They’re people, and the only thing they want is an opportunity to live,” Pimentel said. “So let’s welcome them, and let’s love them.” More

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      Texas: police name suspect after eight killed by truck plowing into crowd

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      Authorities have publicly identified the driver accused of killing several people after plowing his truck into a crowd that was waiting at a bus stop near a shelter serving migrants in a south Texas city.During a Monday morning news conference, police accused George Alvarez of killing eight people and injuring 10 others about 8.30am on Sunday in Brownsville.Police added that Alvarez was a Brownsville resident and had an “extensive” prior criminal record, including allegations of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and driving while intoxicated.Police also said that Alvarez attempted to leave the scene, but he was held down by several people until police arrived and arrested him.A local judge set bond for Alvarez at $3.6m. He was initially booked with reckless driving but faces additional charges, including manslaughter.Police have maintained that they have not determined whether Alvarez acted intentionally and have been unable to verify reports from witnesses that the driver was shouting anti-immigrant obscenities at the time of the crash.A Venezuelan migrant who escaped the crash said the driver, who killed eight people and injured 10, was shouting that immigrants were invading the US, along with other offensive remarks, Monitor News reported. The Guardian reported a similar witness statement.The majority of those injured and killed were Venezuelan, and police have confirmed that they were all men.The crash occurred outside an overnight shelter in Brownsville, Texas, which is near the state’s border with Mexico. The city’s only overnight shelter hosts unhoused people and migrants and has been at capacity for two months.Several people died at the scene, said authorities, with the eighth victim dying on Sunday night.According to surveillance video of the crash, the driver of the SUV ran a light and plowed into the waiting crowd at the bus stop.“What we see in the video is that this SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about a hundred feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” the shelter’s director, Victor Maldonado, told the media.As of Monday morning, the driver’s identity has not been released by authorities. Officials obtained a blood sample of the driver to check for possible intoxicants, but the results of those tests have also not been released, police said on Monday.Alvarez was reportedly being uncooperative and provided different names to authorities, delaying the public release of his identity, police said.The truck killings came four days before Title 42 was set to expire. Title 42 was a Covid-era policy that allowed for the expulsion of migrants.Days before the crash, the US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said that immigration authorities faced “extremely challenging” circumstances along the border with Mexico days as Title 42 is set to end. More

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      A migrant policy is set to end. What will it mean for US’s commitment as a land of refuge?

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      The right to seek asylum in the United States is in the balance as migrants fleeing violence and instability at home anxiously await a chance at safety – amid a major policy shift at the US’s southern border.The Title 42 public health order – which has allowed officials to quickly expel migrants without giving them access to asylum for years now – is expected to finally end on 11 May. What does this mean for the US’s historic commitment as a beacon for freedom from persecution?As government leaders brace for an anticipated uptick in migrants and asylum seekers trying to cross the border, the hardline policies they’re advancing to keep people out may spell potentially deadly consequences for some of the world’s most vulnerable.In Congress, an immigration and border security package that backs an enforcement-only approach is expected to receive a vote on the Republican-controlled House floor as soon as this week.If enacted, the proposed legislation would significantly curtail asylum, limit other humanitarian pathways, restart border wall construction, do away with safeguards for migrant kids, and otherwise rewrite the US’s laws to be far less welcoming to those in need of protection.Realistically, such draconian measures would be unlikely to move forward in the Democratic-controlled Senate, at least as drafted. But they still represent a vision of immigration policy that stands in sharp contrast to the US’s tradition of refuge, while hindering the federal government’s ability to effectively respond during national security events such as the US withdrawal from Afghanistan or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.And meanwhile, the White House and its agencies are also exploring strategies that could chip away at the US’s humanitarian commitments , under a Democratic administration that campaigned on a promise to build “a fair and humane immigration system”.Since Joe Biden took office, he and his staff have been forced to balance those initial goals with intense and unyielding political pressure to respond to record levels of migration at the US-Mexico border. And, as lawmakers spend their time debating anti-immigrant policies instead of bipartisan immigration reform, the administration has reacted with a series of carrots and sticks that are more nuanced than the House’s proposals but still largely couched in mechanisms meant to deter would-be migrants.That trend continued last month, when the Departments of State and Homeland Security unveiled their own collective response to the anticipated increase in humanitarian migration at the US-Mexico border after the Title 42 policy is set to end.Notably, their announcement of new processing centers in Guatemala and Colombia will give migrants in the region a chance to see whether they’re good candidates for lawful immigration pathways not only to the US, but also to Canada and Spain, without ever having to pay smugglers for a dangerous trek north.But in contrast, the administration also has plans that could broadly box out migrants with legitimate claims from accessing protection.That proposal will be finalized by 11 May, Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday. As it stands now, migrants at the southern border who passed through a third country on the way to the US would generally be ineligible for asylum – with a few caveats – unless they qualify for one of three exceptions, all with limitations and exclusions that could make it nearly impossible for many of the most vulnerable asylum seekers to find refuge.The first exception is the Biden administration’s existing programs for people from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti to come to the US with advance permission through a process called parole. These programs allow up to 30,000 individuals each month to reach the US and have coincided with a dip in irregular crossings at the southern border. But there is a high bar – eligibility is limited to those who can obtain a passport, secure a US-based sponsor to support them financially, and afford international commercial air travel.The second exception is for those who wait on the Mexican side of the border – potentially for weeks, months, or indefinitely – for one of the finite number of daily asylum appointments to enter the US through CBP One, a phone application from the federal government that’s been deluged with complaints.The final exception covers asylum seekers who applied for and were denied protection elsewhere en route to the US. But in such places, migrants are viewed by criminal organizations as easy targets for violence and extortion. More than 13,000 migrants have already been kidnapped, raped, tortured or otherwise attacked in Mexico after they were turned back at the US’s southern border since early 2021.Such a bleak situation has generated a great deal of outcry from immigration advocates. And now, these onerous restrictions are being coupled with efforts to fast-track initial asylum screenings and deportations in border facilities where attorneys aren’t allowed to visit in person, prompting more protest and fear that migrants not only won’t be able to exercise their rights but are exposed to unnecessary danger.Polls show that Americans continue to overwhelmingly support the US as a land of refuge and welcome.Contrary to the impression left by partisan squabbles, there are solutions. Ultimately, Congress has the power to be the most effective agent, by legislating new immigration pathways and making other long-awaited reforms that many argue benefit both migrants and US citizens.For example, lawmakers could create more vehicles for migrant workers to fill chronic labor shortages. And legislators could also fund more asylum officers, immigration judges, and other essential personnel, giving overstretched border officials a reprieve while tackling immigration-related backlogs that have undermined the whole system.With potential solutions like these that privilege human life over optics or politics, the US would not have to choose between a tradition of refuge and order at the border. It could do both, protecting the American people and future Americans who are turning to the US right now for help.
      Alexandra Villarreal is a policy and advocacy associate at the National Immigration Forum. More

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      Seven dead in Texas after car drives into crowd outside migrant center

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      Seven people have been killed and 10 others were injured after a car plowed into a crowd outside a shelter serving migrants and homeless people in Brownsville, Texas, on Sunday, and investigators believe it may have been intentional, according to authorities.The car careened into the crowd of people who were sitting on the curb at a bus stop near the Ozanam Center at about 8.30am, the police department in Brownsville, which is near Texas’s border with Mexico, said. That came four days before the scheduled expiration of Title 42, the Covid-19 era policy that allows border patrol agents to swiftly expel migrants at the US’s southern border.Shelter director Victor Maldonado told the Associated Press that upon reviewing the shelter’s surveillance footage, he saw an SUV run a light and plow into the crowd of people who were at the bus stop. The majority of those who were injured or killed were Venezuelan men.“What we see in the video is that this SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about a hundred feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” Maldonado said.Police lieutenant Martin Sandoval told the news outlet Valley Central that seven victims died at the scene, and several others were rushed to nearby hospitals.Video footage posted online showed crowds of people at the scene while clothes and other personal items were strewn all over the road. Several people appeared to be tending to an individual who was lying on a grassy area.Sandoval said the driver was arrested and booked on a count of reckless driving. More charges are likely to be filed in what officers suspect may have been an intentional act, Sandoval added.“It can be three factors,” Sandoval told the Associated Press. “It could be intoxication; it could be an accident; or it could be intentional. In order for us to find out exactly what happened, we have to eliminate the other two.”He added that the driver was transported to a nearby hospital for injuries he sustained after the car rolled over and that no passengers were with him.“He’s being very uncooperative at the hospital, but he will be transported to our city jail as soon as he gets released,” said Sandoval, adding that the detained driver had given officers several different names. “Then we’ll fingerprint him and [take a] mug shot, and then we can find his true identity.”Police have also obtained a blood sample from the driver and have submitted it to be tested for possible intoxicants.The Ozanam Center is the only overnight shelter in Brownsville and manages the release of thousands of migrants from federal custody, and it offers free transportation for migrants.“In the last two months, we’ve been getting 250 to 380 a day,” Maldonado told the Associated Press, adding that even though the shelter can hold up to 250 migrants, many who arrive also leave on the same day.“Some of them were on the way to the bus station, because they were on their way to their destination,” he said.Two days earlier, the US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said that immigration authorities faced “extremely challenging” circumstances along the border with Mexico days before the end of asylum restrictions implemented through Title 42 during the Covid-19 pandemic.A surge of Venezuelan migrants through south Texas, particularly in and around the border community of Brownsville, has occurred over the last two weeks for reasons that Mayorkas said were unclear.On Thursday, 4,000 of about 6,000 migrants in border patrol custody in Texas’s Rio Grande valley were Venezuelan. More