The UN points to the United States for the return of migrants by plane to southern Mexico

A Honduran migrant and his son wait this Tuesday to cross the bridge in Tuxtla Chico, in southern Mexico, after being expelled from the United States under Title 42.JOSE TORRES / Reuters

The migratory crisis accelerated by the attractive economic recovery of the United States worries the United Nations. The offices in Mexico of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNODH), UN Women and the Organization International for Migration (IOM) have reprimanded the Government of Joe Biden this Wednesday for the deportations of migrants by plane to southern Mexico, an extended practice thanks to the pretext of the public health order because of the covid-19. "Families on board these flights who may have urgent protection needs run the risk of being returned to the same dangers from which they have fled in their countries of origin in Central America",they have denounced in a joint statement.

The United States has registered 1.2 million arrests of irregular immigrants since last October, while Mexico has counted that in the first seven months of 2021 it received a record number of 64,378 asylum applications.

US authorities are responding to the wave of migration with "hot" returns of non-Mexican citizens to the interior of Mexico by plane without assessing the needs of each individual.

These flights "constitute a new and worrying dimension in the application of the public health order related to covid-19", known as Title 42.

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The US order has raised blisters between the US and Mexico, since it allows the immediate deportation without any formality of migrants through an exception to the law. It has been used in the context of the pandemic to avoid asylum procedures for people who cross the border irregularly. Humanitarian aid agencies have insisted that this practice deprives migrants of having their needs studied to obtain asylum for social, political or security reasons. Furthermore, it increases the risk of becoming a widespread practice of chain returns by different countries and contravenes international law and the humanitarian principles of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

The UN denounces that the consequences of this practice in the US will put to the test the "already overloaded humanitarian response capacity" in southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. It will also raise the risk of contagion of Covid-19 at borders at a height of the pandemic across the continent. The application of Title 42 puts in check the measures in place to distribute responsibility among the countries of the region to address the root causes of forced displacement and migration. As an alternative, they propose routine health tests, examinations, and quarantine measures to protect America's public health without sacrificing "the human right to seek asylum."

One of the main promises of the Joe Biden Administration as soon as it arrived at the White House was to stop the immigration policy of former President Donald Trump, which forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings in US immigration courts.

For now, the application of Title 42 is still in place, the message of Vice President Kamala Harris to Central America not to consider emigrating to the United States has not had any effect and 2021 is heading to be the year with the most arrests of migrants in an irregular situation since the beginning of the century.

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