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WASHINGTON.- The president Joe Biden He arrived at the White House with the promise of implementing a “humane” immigration policy after the wave of criticism that his predecessor’s policy received. donald trump. But the Democratic leader He will end his term by accelerating deportationswhich already last year set a record in 750,000a peak since 2010, after toughening its border policy in the middle of the presidential campaign.
This Tuesday, Biden presented a proclamation that orders the suspension of entry at the border for asylum seekers and migrants – a virtual closure of access across the border with Mexico – when the limits are exceeded. 2500 arrests in one day. The new restrictions, which must be implemented by the Department of Homeland Security, will remain in effect until arrests fall below 1,500 per day.
The new measure adopted by Biden came after months of blockade by Republicans in Congress to a bipartisan plan to strengthen security and personnel at the border to speed up the processing of thousands of people who arrive in the United States every day to request asylum after fleeing drug violence, dictatorships, natural disasters or poverty in countries like Venezuela or Haiti. Biden also tried, unsuccessfully, to get Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Republicans blocked both measures, bowing to pressure from Trump.
Border security is one of the main issues of the presidential campaign. It is a front on which Biden tried to draw a complex balance, at times impossible to prevent the arrival of a wave of migrants to the border and, at the same time, fulfill his campaign promise and the obligation of the United States to welcome the migrants. asylum seekers.
Biden sought to attack the “root causes” of immigration –an effort that has not borne fruit– and to weave agreements with Mexico and other countries to prevent the arrival of foreigners, while at the same time stretching –forced by circumstances– some of the policies most criticized by Trump.
Without many options, Biden has now tightened his border policywhile keeping other legal channels open to allow asylum applications to continue virtually, and not directly in person.
“These measures will allow us repatriate in a very accelerated manner a much larger proportion of the people we are encountering at the border to their countries or to Mexico“he said in a call with journalists Blas Nuñez-Neto, Undersecretary of Border Policy and Immigration at the Department of Homeland Security.
Nuñez-Neto said that, in the last year, The federal government has deported more than 750,000 people, the highest number since 2010. For smaller figures, the former president Barack Obama They nicknamed him the “Deporter in Chief” during his government.
Nuñez-Neto insisted that the migrants still “they will be able to present themselves in a safe and orderly manner at an entry point” as long as they have requested an appointment first through the “CBP1” mobile application, a portal through which The North American government has already admitted a total of 590,000 people from January 2023 to last April.
“People who apply for an appointment at a point of entry with the CBP1 application will be exempt from these restrictions at the border, and we continue to insist that all migrants who use these legal channels that we have put into effect and do not put their lives in the hands of organized crime to cross the border illegally only to be repatriated in a very accelerated manner to their countries of origin or to Mexico,” the official indicated.
The Biden administration also insisted that led the largest expansion of legal migration routes in decades, but the new policy was criticized by Democrats and Republicans, and especially by organizations that defend the rights of immigrants, who saw it as a surrender of Biden’s campaign promises, contrary to the law and international obligations. USA. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has already anticipated that it will take the action to court.
