Icon: enlarge
Migrants from Honduras with the goal of USA: Hope for a better life
Photo: LUIS ECHEVERRIA / REUTERS
On day one of his reign, US President Joe Biden began to revise his predecessor Donald Trump's immigration policy.
This is good news for the migrants who have just made their way from Central America to the USA.
They hope that the move at the White House will bring them a better life.
As in previous years, thousands of people from Central America made their way to the United States at the beginning of the year.
Up to 9,000 men, women and children set out this time, mainly from Honduras.
They flee from poverty, violence and unemployment.
Icon: enlarge
Migrants cross Guatemala on their way to the United States
Photo: --- / dpa
Because the living conditions and the problems that people in their home countries are exposed to and that have led to people emigrating from the region for years have not improved.
On the contrary, new ones have been added: The corona pandemic is rapidly increasing unemployment in the region.
Two hurricanes hit Central America at the end of last year, causing devastating devastation.
Biden's first official acts give hope
The new government in the White House is a signal to many people about these circumstances.
Jessica Bolter of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington calls it “a new pull factor”.
As an analyst, Bolter focuses on migration movements on the US border with Mexico, asylum issues in the United States and migration policy in Latin America.
The change of government in the United States will bring fundamental changes in the framework of migration policy, which Bolter will accompany in her research in the future.
For example, US President Biden has already announced that he will bring a broad overhaul of immigration laws to Congress.
On his first day in office, Bolter lists, he already has a decree
caused a break in the expansion of the wall on the southern border of the USA,
the entry ban for people from predominantly Islamic countries lifted,
started decriminalizing undocumented people who were to be arrested and deported under Trump,
Deportations suspended for a hundred days and a review of the deportation notices initiated,
strengthened the DACA program, which supports young people who came to the USA illegally as children from deportation and gives them work permits,
halted the Remain in Mexico program that sent migrants back to Mexico to await their asylum hearing.
What does that mean now?
Will the chaotic images from the past few years, when thousands of migrants congested on the US southern border, repeat themselves?
Icon: enlarge
Guatemala's security forces are trying to stop the migrants
Photo: JOHAN ORDONEZ / AFP
To assess that, it's worth taking a look back.
Ex-President Trump did a lot to seal off the borders of the United States.
Not only with its wall, but also with a lot of pressure on transit countries like Guatemala and Mexico that should stop migrants.
In 2019, Trump cut aid funds for the three countries from which most of the people came.
He managed to get the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to stop a number of people willing to emigrate.
Mexico forced the ex-president to cooperate with a threatened increase in tariffs.
Trump also signed asylum agreements with third countries such as Guatemala and deported asylum seekers from Central America who had asked for protection in the United States.
Instead of the United States, they should apply for asylum in Guatemala.
With these agreements, the Trump administration effectively undermined the right to seek asylum in the United States.
However, all of this had more symbolic character than effect.
A report by the US Senate, quoted in the Washington Post, explains the consequences of this policy: Since November 2019, the Trump administration has deported 945 asylum seekers, mainly from El Salvador and Honduras, to Guatemala.
Only 34 of them have applied for asylum in the country - and none of them have yet been granted asylum.
Guatemala, shaken by gang violence, is - according to the US embassy in Guatemala - one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
Just like Honduras and El Salvador, where the third country agreements should also apply, Guatemala has not even remotely developed an asylum system.
The country is completely overwhelmed with the fulfillment of the agreement.
US immigration policy doesn't change overnight
The Biden government has already announced that it will also suspend Trump's asylum agreements with third countries and accept asylum applications again.
She also warned the migrants not to travel any further: US immigration policy will not change overnight.
"The rule that someone who crosses the border illegally will be deported and not given access to asylum will remain in place for the time being," says expert Jessica Bolter.
Biden had communicated that his government would need "at least the next six months" to shape a "more humane asylum policy".
Icon: enlarge
Migration expert Jessica Bolter
from the Migration Policy Institute in Washington
Photo: MPI
Bolter says there is great concern that there will be chaotic scenes again at the border and that these will hamper Biden's progressive agenda.
"Before the government re-opens access to asylum, it will endeavor to set up a better-functioning asylum system at the border so that the requests can also be managed."
The Biden government will endeavor to work well with the Central American countries to better control migration flows in the region.
There are already approaches to set up asylum centers in these countries so that those seeking protection can submit their applications locally.
Biden has also announced that it will focus on the causes of flight in the Central American states.
Icon: enlarge
Honduran migrants en route to the USA
Photo: Oliver de Ros / AP
The trek from Honduras with 3,000 migrants was broken up by security forces in Guatemala at the beginning of the week.
According to observers, some groups should continue moving towards Mexico.
But thousands have been stopped and some have been sent back to Honduras.
Guatemala, which also justified its hard-handed policy with the risk of infection in the pandemic, continues to perform the role as a bouncer attributed by Trump to after leaving the White House.
This role could change in the future.
"The Biden government will certainly see regional partners more as partners in the future, whereas Trump only shaped his migration policy through pressure," says Bolter.
Migrants will move towards the USA in greater numbers
Bolter expects that the people will now set off again in greater numbers in the direction of the USA.
She considers it less likely that tens of thousands will again be stuck in slum camps at the border, as was the case under Trump.
Trump had consciously produced the misery in line with his political agenda.
»The new government will approach the matter pragmatically and work with partners, NGOs and migrant hostels on the border.
It will equip the key centers at the border to be able to deal adequately with parents and children so that the chaotic scenes from the past do not repeat themselves. "
The chance that there will be less trauma in the future among migrant families who are striving for a decent life in the USA is high.
Icon: The mirror
