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“Title 42”: the asylum ban at the border expired at midnight and the US immigration system is in tension

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As pandemic-era asylum restrictions ended early Friday, migrants in northern Mexico I woke up with more uncertainties: now to ask for asylum they have to trust an online system obtain an interview to seek asylum in the United States.

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Along the US-Mexico border on Friday, people were hunched over their cell phones. trying to access an app of dates that could change your future.

President Joe Biden’s administration introduced the new asylum rules in an effort to get asylum seekers stop crossing the border illegally upon reactivation e tighten pre-pandemic sanctions and create new targeted asylum legal avenues eliminate smugglers.

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The border, fortified with barbed wire and troops.  Photo: John Moore/Getty Images/AFP

The border, fortified with barbed wire and troops. Photo: John Moore/Getty Images/AFP

Transition to the new system developed overnight between legal challenges and desperate efforts by migrants to cross a border fortified with barbed wire and troops.

In Matamoros, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, migrant families, some bringing their own children, hesitated only briefly when the deadline passed before they enter the waters of the Rio Grande, holding cell phones on the water to light the way to the United States.

US authorities have yelled at migrants to back off.

“Beware of the boys”one official shouted through a megaphone. “It’s especially dangerous for children.”

Migrants cross the Rio Grande to try to enter the United States, in Matamoros (Mexico).  Photo: EFE

Migrants cross the Rio Grande to try to enter the United States, in Matamoros (Mexico). Photo: EFE

Separately, at an open-air migrant camp near a border bridge in Ciudad Juárez across from El Paso, Texas, cell phones were on as migrants they were trying to book a daycare appointment online through an application maintained by the US Customs and Border Protection.

“There is no other way in”, said Venezuelan Carolina Ortiz, accompanied by her husband and their children, aged 1 and 4. Others in the field had the same plan: keep testing the app.

What is title 42

the expired standard, known as Title 42it had been in effect since March 2020. It allowed border officials promptly return asylum seekers across borders to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

A migrant in line to obtain documentation for transit through the country, today in the city of Tapachula in Chiapas (Mexico).  Photo: EFE

A migrant in line to obtain documentation for transit through the country, today in the city of Tapachula in Chiapas (Mexico). Photo: EFE

While the title 42 prevented many from seeking asylum, had no legal consequences e encouraged repeated attempts. From now on, it’s worse. Migrants face a ban on entering the United States for five years and possible criminal prosecution.

On the US border with Tijuana when title 42 expiredthere was no visible reaction among hundreds of migrants held in US custody between two border walls, many for days on little food. They slept on the floor under bright lights in the fresh spring air. The shelters in Tijuana were filled with about 6,000 migrants.

It was unclear how many migrants were on the move or how long the surge might last. Thursday evening, the flow appeared to decrease in places, but it was unclear why or if crossings would increase again.

A police officer explains the new US measures to an asylum seeker in Tijuana.  Photo: Guillermo Arias / AFP

A police officer explains the new US measures to an asylum seeker in Tijuana. Photo: Guillermo Arias / AFP

A US official said border patrols arrested about 10,000 migrants on Tuesday, nearly double the average daily level since March and just below the 11,000 figure authorities said was the upper limit of what they expect next. the end of title 42.

More than 27,000 people were in custody by US Customs and Border Protection, the official said.

“Our buses are full. Our planes are full,” Brownsville City Commissioner Pedro Cárdenas said as the new arrivals made their way to locations across the United States.

Migrants sleep on the street in downtown El Paso, one of the largest illegal border crossings.  Photo: AP

Migrants sleep on the street in downtown El Paso, one of the largest illegal border crossings. Photo: AP

Canada or Spain

The administration hopes so a new system is neater and help some immigrants to seek asylum in Canada or Spain instead of the United States.

But Biden admitted that the border it will be chaotic for a while. Immigrant advocacy groups have threatened to do so take legal action, and migrants fleeing poverty, gangs, and persecution in their home countries are still desperately trying to reach American soil at all costs.

Detention facilities along the border they were already well beyond their capabilities. But Thursday night, Donald Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell blocked the Biden administration’s plan to begin releasing migrants provided they report to an immigration office within 60 days.

The quick releases would also come as authorities detained 7,000 migrants along the border in one day. The judge stopped all this despite the overcrowding.

Venezuelan migrants in a field in front of Sacred Heart Church in El Paso, Texas.  Photo: AP

Venezuelan migrants in a field in front of Sacred Heart Church in El Paso, Texas. Photo: AP

In a statement, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it would comply with the court order, calling it “harmful ruling that will result in dangerous overcrowding…and will undermine our ability to process and remove migrants efficiently.”

Weatherell has stalled releases For two weeks and scheduled a hearing for May 19 on whether to extend his order.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had already warned that busier border patrol facilities were in sight.

“I cannot overstate the pressure on our staff and facilities,” he told reporters on Thursday.

Homeland Security on Wednesday announced a rule to make it extremely difficult for anyone traveling through another country or anyone who hasn’t applied for asylum online, with a few exceptions. also introduced Curfew tracked by GPS for families released in the United States prior to initial asylum assessments.

Minutes before the new rule went into effect, advocacy groups They filed a lawsuit to block it.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies and other groups, alleges that the Biden administration “remastered” a policy proposed by President Donald Trump which the same judge rejected. The Biden administration has said its new rule is fundamentally different.

The government has also said it is stepping up the deportation of migrants who are not qualified to remain in the United States on flights like the ones that sent nearly 400 migrants to Guatemala.

Among them was Sheidi Mazariegos, 26, who arrived with her 4-year-old son just eight days after being stopped near Brownsville.

“I heard on the news that there was an opportunity to get in, I heard it on the radio, but it was all a lie,” he said. Smugglers took her to Matamoros and they put them both on a raft. They were quickly arrested by border police officers.

Mazariegos said he made the trip because he is poor and hoped to join his sisters who live in the United States.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador noted an increase in smugglers on the southern border from his country he offered to take people to the United States and said they were telling the migrants that the border with the United States was open.

At the same time, the administration introduced broad new avenues of law in the United States.

The way to enter legally

Up to 30,000 people a month from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela they can enter if they apply online with a financial sponsor and enter through an airport. Processing centers are opening in Guatemala, Colombia and elsewhere. Up to 1,000 people are allowed to enter each day through land crossings with Mexico if they get an appointment in the app on a mobile phone.

In reception centers in northern Mexico, many migrants chose not to rush to the border and waited for existing asylum appointments or the hope of booking one online.

At the Ágape Misión Mundial shelter in Tijuana, hundreds of migrants bided their time. Daisy Bucia, 37, and her 15-year-old daughter arrived at the shelter More than three months ago from the Mexican state of Michoacán fleeing death threats, and has an asylum appointment on Saturday in California.

Bucia read on social media that pandemic-era restrictions were ending at the U.S.-Mexico border, but she wasn’t sure if that was true and preferred to cross for sure later.

“What people want more than anything is to confuse you“, She said.

Valerie González, Elliot Spagat and Giovanna Dell’Orto are reporters for the Associated Press.

Source: Clarin

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