Migrants cling to Trump’s controversial asylum plan

Some migrants stranded for months south of the Rio Grande now have their hopes pinned on the expansion of former President Donald Trump’s most controversial and criticized immigration policy: the one that allows asylum seekers in U.S, but waiting for the process in Mexico.

The chances of obtaining asylum this way seem minimal, although there are those who see it as a kind of consolation prize. They think that it is better to be in this area controlled by organized crime with an asylum process under way – the program known as “Remain in Mexico” or MPP, according to the acronym in English of its official name – than to be returned or wait with the same fear but without a paper in the hands.

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“There is no other way to cross legally, so I think it will be good”, says Alexander Sánchez, a Venezuelan who has been in a shelter in Reynosa, on the eastern edge of the US-Mexico border, with his wife and 5-year-old daughter for nine months. Sánchez is confident that he will soon be able to take advantage of this plan, paralyzed by President Joe Biden when he came to power in January 2021 and then forced to reinstate him by court order.

The renewed version of the most symbolic program of Trump’s anti-immigrant policy began to be reinstated in early December and its expansion this week to the border between Tamaulipas (where Reynosa is located) and Texas has gone almost unnoticed despite its connotations: that Mexican state is the largest migrant smuggling corridor and it was in Texas where a Trump-appointed judge ordered Biden to reinstate the plan.

Migrants sleep under a kiosk in a park in Reynosa, Mexico. (Photo: AP/Darío López-Mills, File)

The range has been minimal. Until Wednesday, only 381 asylum seekers had been returned to Mexico by this plan, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN agency in charge of receiving them.

By comparison, tens of thousands who cross illegally continue to be automatically expelled to Mexico each month without being able to seek asylum due to a public health measure (called Title 42) that Trump put in place at the start of the pandemic on the grounds of reduce infections and that Biden kept unchanged. In December alone there were almost 80,000 such expulsions.

Walter Alexis Beltrán, a Salvadoran optometrist, was one of those returned under Title 42 four months ago. Since then, he has lived with his wife and 4-year-old daughter among the more than 2,000 migrants who are crowded between tents and intertwined plastic in a camp set up in the Plaza de Reynosa.

Beltrán paid the smugglers $4,500 just to cross the Rio Grande and turn himself in to US authorities. A few hours later, he and his family were back in Mexico without having even been able to tell his story.

“The MPP has its advantages and its disadvantages,” he explains while keeping an eye on his small business: a battery bought with his last savings, with which he offers cell phone charges to the rest of the migrants for a quarter of a dollar while he waits for a new opportunity to cross. to ask for asylum.

“I prefer this to being sent to El Salvador,” he says. “The downside is the danger here,” an area controlled by cartels for whom migrants are a thriving business.

However, any optimism about the new MPP seems unfounded.

Of the more than 70,000 asylum seekers that Trump included in that program in two years, less than 1% were accepted. And according to a data analysis unit at Syracuse University called TRAC, about half of the cases are still pending and the rest were rejected.

Now there is no clarity about who will be integrated into the new version of the MPP. In the first month, most were Nicaraguans, followed by Venezuelans and Cubans, according to the organization Human Rights First.

The Department of Homeland Security, responding to an AP request for comment, said migrants cannot choose whether or not to enter the MPP, and that the policy applies to those who cannot be removed under the restrictions of the MPP. pandemic, that is, Title 42.

Theoretically, Mexico only accepts Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans for this measure. Citizens of other countries in the Western Hemisphere are released on court orders or detained in the United States until they are returned to their countries, making them seem prime candidates for MPP.

Unlike the more than 1.5 million expulsions carried out by the United States under the umbrella of the pandemic since March 2020, which did not need Mexican approval, the MPP (both old and new) always needed it. , because Mexico has to accept and register those asylum seekers.

Hence, the reinstatement of the policy entailed months of intense negotiations —accelerated when small caravans began to emerge moving through southern Mexico— in which the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which was not bound by the US court decision August, at least he wanted to get more support for the management of migrants in his territory.

Biden aspired to comply with the judge’s order in the most humane way possible, shortening the terms of the asylum process for those admitted to the program, facilitating greater legal assistance and trying to guarantee the safety of these migrants.

One of the most complex points was Tamaulipas. Mexico was concerned about accepting returnees through this state where massacres against migrants have been repeated. The United States also did not want to be accused of acting like in the Trump era. And both countries feared that not including this border in the program could further encourage illegal trafficking in that area. Finally, the IOM offered to transfer the migrants who arrived in dangerous places to safer cities — and it did so with the first ones returned by Tamaulipas, who were taken to Monterrey, more than 200 kilometers to the south.

The Biden administration planned for 30 to 50 migrants a day to be returned under the new MPP, according to a US official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. But those figures are far from the current ones: about half a dozen daily for each crossing. The first to open was in the center of the border —from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez—, the second in the extreme west —from San Diego to Tijuana—, this week in the east —Brownsville to Matamoros— and it is expected opening two more shortly.

Parallel to the entire MPP negotiation, the United States continued with the expulsions under the restrictions of the pandemic through any part of the border.

But also, at the same time, it processed 6 out of 10 migrants who arrived illegally under other immigration regulations, including the one that allows asylum.

For example, in December, compared to almost 80,000 expulsions by Title 42, some 100,000 migrants were able to present their cases and many managed to stay to process their asylum requests from US territory.

The Biden administration has not explained why so many people can apply for asylum and stay in the United States and many others cannot.

These ambiguities and movements in apparently contrary directions have multiplied the uncertainties on the border.

“Preventing new arrivals and discouraging everyone is the purpose (of the United States), but they have to make it clear who can and who cannot enter,” says Pastor Abraham Barberi, founder of the Dulce Refugio shelter in Matamoros. “People need clear instructions.”

Juan Antonio Sierra, a member of the area of ​​the Catholic Church that is in charge of migrants in Matamoros, considers it incongruous that if a person enters the United States illegally and is detained, they have options to request asylum, but if they appear at the bridge legally and requests it there, do not accept it. The only exception is some sick or very vulnerable people.

Both civil society leaders are in constant communication with US authorities.

Agencies such as the IOM and civil society organizations have been warning for months that the lack of information benefits crime, because traffickers spread rumors and play with people’s hopes.

“The MPP thing is good: even if we have to wait… one enters with permission,” says Ruth Rubio while her 6-year-old daughter runs between the tents in Reynosa.

Rubio says that two of his brothers were killed in Honduras and that his oldest daughter, who was shot, is already in the United States. The authorities will have to check if all this is true and although she is confident, no one has told her how, when or if she will even have the opportunity to present her case to the Americans at some point.

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Source: Elcomercio