The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced this Friday through a statement the resumption from today of Immigration and Customs Control (ICE) flights to quickly deport immigrant families arriving at the border who “ do not qualify ”to apply for asylum.
These immigrants, intercepted by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), will thus be sent "immediately" to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, according to the statement, "making it clear that those who do not qualify to remain in the United States will quickly be driven out".
"Irregular immigration is dangerous and has long-term consequences," says the statement, which highlights the risk that this trip poses, especially for children, and recalls its program for Central Americans to request refuge in the United States or a visa to come. to work from their countries of origin.
[The Government elaborates a plan to accelerate requests for asylum but also deportations]
In any case, it is the last measure approved by the Joe Biden Government in recent days to deal with the massive arrival of immigrants to the border despite the fact that Title 42 is still in force, which allows them to deny them the right to asylum and return them immediately to Mexico due to the risk of contagion in the coronavirus pandemic.
Deported immigrants arrive in Guatemala City in September 2017. Getty Images
This Monday, the Department of Homeland Security already announced that migrant families who could not be expelled under Title 42 (Mexico does not accept them all back) would be placed in rapid expulsion procedures from that same day, a "more accelerated system for kick out those families who have no legal reason to be in the United States. "
"We are sending back the vast majority of incoming families," Biden said on March 25.
"We are trying with Mexico to be willing to accept more families of those," added the president, thus admitting that the ability to immediately expel migrants who cross the border, even with Title 42 in force, is limited due to the need for Mexico to accept them back.
In March, when Biden made those remarks, official figures showed that only a third of migrant families were immediately expelled to Mexico.
[Arrests at the border grow as more and more migrants intercepted and returned to Mexico try to cross again]
"In the event that Mexico is not able to receive them," a White House spokesman explained then, "those families are placed in immigration proceedings in the United States."
That is, they are allowed to request asylum and, for the most part, they are released in the country to await the result of a procedure that can last several years.
By placing these families in expedited removal proceedings, immigration agents can quickly return to Mexico those they believe they have no chance of obtaining asylum here, without allowing them to defend their cases in immigration court.
With the decision announced today to resume ICE flights to Central America, you can get around Mexico's refusal to receive these families and transfer them directly to their countries of origin.
In June, 188,000 immigrants were intercepted at the border, 5% more than the previous month, despite being one of the hottest months of the year. Of those, 103,014 were returned without the right to seek asylum under title 42. So far this fiscal year (since October 2020) 1,119,000 immigrants have been intercepted, the highest number in a decade.
