Pressure Builds on Biden to Cancel Coronavirus Border Shutdown for Illegal Immigrants; Biden Administration to Warn Mexico That Relaxed Border Policies May Cause Migrant Surge
Pressure builds on Biden to cancel coronavirus border shutdown for illegal immigrants:
Top Democrats and hundreds of immigrant-rights advocacy groups demanded Thursday that President Biden cancel the pandemic border shutdown policy that’s blocked hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from attempting to gain a foothold in the U.S.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Robert Menendez held a press conference call to ask Mr. Biden to rescind the policy, and some 300 activist groups fired off a letter to the president calling for action.
The groups said the policy, one of the few get-tough measures the Biden team kept in place from the Trump administration, has always been dangerous — and, they argue, illegal.
Now, with the pandemic easing, the groups have renewed calls for Mr. Biden to fully end the shutdown policy, known officially as Title 42.
“The Title 42 policy is a stain on the conscience of the United States,” the groups said. “The continued use of the Title 42 policy indelibly marks your administration as complicit in human rights abuses on a massive scale.”
Mr. Schumer, for his part, said he was “disappointed” Title 42 is still being used, saying it “goes against everything this country stands for.”
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus also issued a statement late Thursday demanding an end to Title 42 and chastising Mr. Biden for having held on to a “xenophobic” policy from the Trump administration for so long. —>READ MORE HERE
Biden Administration to Warn Mexico That Relaxed Border Policies May Cause Migrant Surge:
Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security have been planning to tell Mexico that the Covid-inspired Title 42 policy that allows border agents to expel migrants and asylum-seekers without a court hearing may expire as soon as April, driving an influx of migrants and straining resources.
DHS officials warned that without the special public health measure, the agency will need to go back to old protocol to process illegal immigrants, who could apply for asylum and argue their case to remain in the U.S., according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.
The return to those standard practices could “seriously strain” border resources and create a migrant surge, the draft document noted. Department officials seemed to recognize the unprecedented number of border crossers this year, which they called “historically and unseasonably high.”
DHS officials are also monitoring the Haitians who have received temporary protected status in Mexico who could later decide to come to the U.S. September saw a Haitian-migrant crisis in which thousands of border-crossers converged on the Del Rio bridge in Texas, setting up encampments and overwhelming agents and detention centers. Title 42 was used to turn away thousands of Haitians, although thousands of others were able to gain entry into the interior. As of September, migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border were at a 21-year high. —>READ MORE HERE
Follow links below to related stories:
Biden cancels COVID border shutdown for illegal immigrant children
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