DESPITE the end of the United States Title 42 border restrictions, obstacles and the lack of legal options to reach the US will continue to have a serious impact on the health of people seeking asylum, warns Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
MSF calls for a dignified and safe asylum system to be reestablished for all people seeking asylum at the US’ southern border.
The refugee rescue charity said: ‘On 11 May, as the Biden administration ended the Covid-19 public health emergency nationally, Title 42, a public health order used to shut down asylum at the US southern border for more than three years, officially came to an end.
‘Invoked by the Trump administration in 2020 and repeatedly extended by the Biden administration, Title 42 allowed the blocking and expulsion of people seeking protection at the US southern border.
‘Médecins Sans Frontières teams in cities such as Reynosa, Matamoros, Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuña witnessed how this policy left people in vulnerable circumstances without access to basic health services, and exposed thousands of people to insecurity, extreme weather, a lack of shelter and insufficient access to food.’
‘The tightening of measures against people seeking asylum and the lack of efficient legal options to reach the US has a serious impact on the health of migrants,’ says Adriana Palomares, MSF head of mission in Mexico and Central America.
‘It is urgent that a dignified and safe asylum system be reestablished for all.’
The MSF statement continued: ‘Title 42 was used to authorise over 2.8 million expulsions from the US to cities along the US-Mexico border and caused a humanitarian catastrophe for migrants seeking safety and well-being in the US.
‘For three years, this policy left thousands of people abandoned with limited access to shelter or basic services, and often left them at risk of violence in cities that do not have the security or resources to meet their massive needs.
‘It’s great news that Title 42 will finally end. It falsely used public health to block people from seeking asylum and put countless people in danger,’ says Palomares.
‘We were hoping that processes to welcome those seeking protection will be restored with the end of Title 42,’ she said.
‘Unfortunately, the Biden administration appears focused on erecting new barriers to accessing asylum, including through the final rule released last week, which will bar many people from accessing the protection they desperately need.
‘We know that policies of deterrence don’t work, and all this will do is expose more people to violence and danger.’
The MSF warns: ‘In addition to a slew of new immigration policies recently rolled out by the Biden administration, once Title 42 expires, the US government will return to processing migrants under existing US immigration law, known as Title 8.
‘Under Title 8, migrants can face a fine or penalty before being deported.
‘If caught trying to re-enter the US, they can face criminal charges and be banned from entering the country or seeking asylum for five to 20 years.’
Palomares adds: ‘The Biden administration promised to build a safe, fair and humane immigration system.
‘Instead, it has continued or expanded ways to keep people from seeking asylum at the US southern border. For many of the patients we treat along the migration route, returning home is not an option.
‘Pushing migrants back, detaining them, abandoning them, or purposefully making the process so difficult that they just give up their quest to reach the US is a cruel policy that only endangers people,’ she said.
The Biden administration began implementing a sweeping policy shift at the US-Mexico border last Friday as the Covid-era order that had allowed the swift expulsion of many migrants expired and new asylum restrictions took effect amid confusion and uncertainty.
Several last-minute court actions added to questions about how President Joe Biden’s reworked border strategy would play out, with advocates filing a legal challenge to the new asylum regulation as it was enacted.
‘We continue to encounter high levels of non-citizens at the border, but we did not see a substantial increase overnight or an influx at midnight,’ when Title 42 expired, US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Blas Nunez-Neto told reporters last Friday.
Seeking to discourage migrants from travelling to the border, the Mexican government said its national migration institute has ordered its offices not to issue immigration documents or other permits enabling travel within the country, creating another obstacle for migrants.
Last Friday, at the US border fence dividing El Paso, Texas, from Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez, hundreds of migrants who had slept there overnight formed a single file line to be brought into the US by authorities and put on buses. Texas National Guard, state troopers and border agents patrolled the area.
Immigration advocates represented by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a legal challenge against the new asylum bars, claiming they violate US and international laws.
Advocates argue the new regulation, put in place by Biden’s Democratic administration to curb illegal crossings, resembles restrictions imposed by his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, that they had successfully blocked in court.
US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended the Biden regulation, saying it aims to encourage migrants to enter using legal pathways. ‘It’s going to be a tough transition,’ he told reporters.
US asylum officers hurried to figure out the logistics of applying the new asylum regulation.
Further complicating the new US policy, a federal judge in Florida ordered the US Border Patrol not to release any migrants without first issuing them formal notices to appear in immigration court. The Texas attorney general later asked a federal judge to do the same.
In chaotic scenes last Thursday, migrants scrambled to enter the country before the new rule went into effect.
The regulation presumes most migrants are ineligible for asylum if they passed through other countries without first seeking protection elsewhere, or if they failed to use legal pathways for US entry, which Biden claims he has expanded.
Tens of thousands of migrants last week waded through rivers, climbed walls and embankments onto US territory.
Lindsay Toczylowski, director of Immigrant Defenders Law Centre, one of the groups suing the Biden administration, said the new asylum policy was ‘extremely disappointing when people’s lives are in the balance.’
Around 25,000 migrants were being held in US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities near the border last Friday, down slightly from record highs earlier in the week, according to the National Border Patrol Council, a union for agents. About 10,000 migrants per day were reported crossing illegally last week.
A 17-year-old Honduran boy died after being found unconscious in a Florida shelter on Wednesday, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Unaccompanied children are exempt from the new regulation, and advocates have warned that parents might send children across the border alone.
Some Democrats and immigration advocates say Biden’s new regulation is too harsh.
The measure also counters previous statements Biden made in 2020 on the campaign trail, when he said it was ‘wrong’ for people not to be able to seek asylum on US soil.
Migrants have been expelled more than 2.7 million times under Title 42, although the total includes repeat crossers. Mexico has generally only accepted certain nationalities – its own citizens, migrants from northern Central America and more recently migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua.
So, during the same period, around 2.8 million migrants ineligible for expulsion were allowed into the US under Title 8 to pursue immigration claims.
Republicans blame Biden for easing Trump’s more restrictive policies, while the Biden administration has blamed Republicans for blocking legislation to reform the immigration system.
