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Mexico celebrates the collapse of detentions of migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua on the border with the US

2023-02-03T11:00:53.325Z


In a report to which EL PAÍS has had access, the Foreign Ministry considers the plan agreed with Biden to grant 30,000 visas to these countries a success. Experts warn of the rise of other irregular flows and the collapse of the reception system


A report by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs reveals that the detentions —called by the euphemism of “encounters”— of migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua on the border with the United States have plummeted in January.

The text points to "a 97.5% reduction in Cuban nationals" and "a flow close to zero of Haitians."

These data, which are going to be sent to the Senate and to which EL PAÍS has had access, are presented by the Foreign Ministry as a success of the latest policy agreed with Joe Biden to allow monthly access to the US for 30,000 migrants from these four countries .

In the absence of knowing the official statistics of the Office of Customs and Border Control (CBP), experts warn of the growth of other irregular flows,

in addition to the strong arrival of applicants from new countries such as Peru, Colombia and Ecuador.

All coupled with a reception system, says Andrés Rodríguez, head of the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees (Comar), on the brink of collapse.

Last December, any immigration record was pulverized: US border agents detained 251,487 people, that is, on average, more than 8,000 people a day.

In the same month, but in 2019, to put it into perspective, there were barely 40,000.

Of these detainees, according to CBP data, 202,000 were subjected to the so-called Title 8, which allows them to be deported to their countries of origin, and the rest, almost 50,000, were sent to Mexico under the controversial Title 42. This old directive , which was resurrected by Donald Trump, allows foreign citizens, including asylum seekers, to be rejected for health reasons, in this case the coronavirus pandemic.

A pretext rejected by human rights organizations and that the Biden government has not yet withdrawn

In this context, with Mexico as a tense containment room and under pressure from the Republican States, with Texas at the helm, Biden announced on January 5 the implementation of a new program to grant 30,000 special permits to migrants from Venezuela each month. , Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua to enter the country by air.

Among the requirements was that they had someone to endorse them in the US, that they were vaccinated and that they applied for this visa from outside the US. As a counterbalance, the punishments were tougher.

Those who tried to cross the borders of Panama, Mexico or the United States illegally would no longer be eligible for this program.

UNAM development studies expert Tonatiuh Guillén calls it the law of the hand and the club.

“The positive part is that there is a large number of applicants, but it has a very selective procedure: you have to have the sponsor, internet capacity and conditions to understand the procedure.

That in the end annuls the human right to asylum, because a lot of people are excluded by this system ”, explains who was the head of the Mexican immigration apparatus until its departure in 2019, after the heavy-handed demands of Donald Trump.

“In addition to being very forceful, if you enter irregularly you are disqualified and people do not want to risk being cancelled, so the flow is contained: it is the soft wall, more effective than the hard wall.

And cheaper."

Graph created by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs on arrests on the border with the US. SRE

The Foreign Affairs report, which is entitled "Unilateral Measures by the United States on the Implementation of Section 265 of Title 42 of the United States Code", draws a panorama of triumph with this new policy.

According to their data, the applications of 26,000 Venezuelans, 4,800 Cubans, 2,000 Haitians and 800 Nicaraguans have been approved to enter the United States by air this January.

"This represents that the new access route to the US labor market is already a reality," the document reads.

"Based on the data, a positive effect of implementing public policies for a more orderly, safe, regular and humane migration for the benefit of migrants is observed."

The counterpart of this program, which began in April with Ukrainian citizens and continued in October with 24,000 permits for Venezuelans, is that Mexico must allow migrants of these nationalities to be returned to its territory.

Before, applicants from these countries, with which the US government has no extradition treaty, had to wait on their side of the border.

Now, with the agreement with Mexico, the Biden Administration admits the 30,000 who arrive by plane, with a prior application and selection process, and can send the rest to its neighbor to the south —with a maximum, also, of 30,000 people— .

This inevitably impacts the Mexican asylum system.

At the end of this January, Comar had surpassed any record of requests: more than 12,800 applicants —last year this month there were less than half, 5,800—, of which 4,300 are Haitians.

"Last year's monthly average was 1,429, that is, there are almost three times more this month, which puts us at the levels of 2021, when we had the historical record of 50,000 Haitians seeking refuge," Andrés Rodríguez explained to EL PAÍS. Comar holder.

If there is a direct relationship between the fact that Haitians can now return to Mexico for title 42, it is too early to say, warns Rodríguez, who does not hesitate to affirm that this correlation has been experienced with Venezuela since October: "In the case of Venezuelans it was forceful,

all those who were expelled from the US to Mexico did not want to stay in Mexico.

They did not know what to do and en masse they applied for asylum”.

The Foreign Affairs report states that between October and January 16,268 Venezuelans were returned under title 42.

These returns are finishing pressing a pot that is already boiling.

"We are working on more efficient methods, we do everything we can, but we are not magicians," explains the head of Comar, who warns that without other migratory alternatives and with the meager budget they manage "the room for improvement every time is minor”.

Last year there were almost 120,000 applicants, which are added to the 130,000 the previous year.

The latest policies and title 42 “do not help”: “Migrants see our asylum system as a springboard, get their savings, and apply for these special visas.

We have to take care to protect people, but also the asylum system itself, not to become a kind of travel agency.

We are on the brink of collapse."

A Haitian migrant girl at a Tijuana shelter on Aug. 7, 2022.Fred Ramos (Bloomberg)

Special visas, a temporary brake?

The Foreign Ministry report does not include the evolution of the arrests of other nationalities in January.

In fact, in December, the majority of those arrested at the border were Mexicans, 48,179, according to CBP, followed by Guatemalans (14,800), Hondurans (13,100) and Salvadorans (4,800).

As Tonatiuh Guillén warns, in addition, in recent months the arrival of new countries such as Peru, Ecuador or Colombia has increased.

“This policy manages to lower the flow of Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans, and later, do they extend it to others?

And another question is: what is the Government of Mexico doing in relation to the flow of Mexicans, who are 30% of the total?

Why did they start dating again in 2020 after more than a decade of stability?

In addition to fundamentally economic reasons,

The CBP figures include those cases of people detained, but the gap opens as to what happens to those who cross but are not "found."

Until October, for example, Venezuelan migrants crossed to turn themselves in to a US official and begin their asylum process, since then they can no longer do so because they are returned to Mexico, the same is now happening since January with Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians.

This can lead them to the old irregular crossing.

“This brake that we are seeing is then a temporary solution?

Sustainable?

Or, are we going to return to the previous model of the direct irregular crossing?” asks Guillén.

For the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for the moment, these measures "offer an unprecedented path of orderly entry into the US labor market. And in turn,

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-02-03

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