The Government of President Joe Biden presented this Tuesday a plan to stop illegal crossings on the border with Mexico that in certain aspects is reminiscent of the policies of his predecessor in office, Donald Trump. Biden's proposal will prevent immigrants arriving in the United States from requesting asylum who have not previously applied for it from their countries of origin or in one of the countries of transit. His roadmap is already raising eyebrows among human rights organizations.
"The proposed rule would encourage migrants to take legal, safe, and orderly pathways to the United States, or to seek asylum or other protection in the countries through which they travel, thereby reducing reliance on human smuggling networks that exploit migrants." migrants for financial gain," says the document from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) directed by Alejandro Mayorkas.
The authorities believe that the absence of such a proposal would lead to "a significant increase" in illegal border crossings that have become a real headache for the Biden administration since the beginning of his term. There remains the strong criticism leveled at Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Biden appointed to deal with the crisis on the border, after the massive caravans of immigrants from Central America to the US in 2021.
In December the situation also reached critical levels. Illegal crossings broke records, with a daily average of 3,367 -according to DHS data- and images of long lines in front of the El Paso, Texas crossing, went around the world. The expected repeal of Title 42, the public health rule imposed by Trump that allows the almost immediate expulsion of undocumented immigrants at the border with the pandemic as a pretext, unleashed a very high flow on the border with Mexico, a rule that the Supreme Court extended and will expire on May 11.
The new proposal would be in force for two years and would begin to apply once Title 42 expires, according to sources in the Biden Administration. The plan makes it clear that those who fail to comply with an ordered asylum claim will be "expeditiously expelled or removed" with a penalty of five years without being able to try again. "People who are provided a safe, orderly, and legal path into the United States are less likely to risk their lives traveling thousands of miles at the hands of ruthless traffickers, only to reach our southern border and face the legal consequences of illegal entry," Mayorkas said in a statement.
Groups like Amnesty International have denounced that the plan "undermines the human right to asylum" and leaves people without protection who face grave dangers on their way to the US. Threats of legal action have already begun to surface.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
