Written by Reem Abdel Hamid
Saturday, May 13, 2023 06:00 AM
The immigrant crisis is once again at the forefront of attention in the United States, after the imposition of good asylum rules following the end of health restrictions that were enacted with the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, more than three years ago.
And the Associated Press said that with the end of health restrictions imposed on asylum seekers to the United States, starting Friday, migrants in northern Mexico face more uncertainty about a new electronic system for making appointments in order to apply for asylum in the country.
Still, some migrants headed anxiously toward Riogrand, Texas, on the South American border, defying officials who shouted at them to turn back, while elsewhere along the US-Mexico border people clutched their phones trying to enter the appointment-making app that might change their future.
President Joe Biden’s administration introduced the new asylum rules in an effort to prevent asylum seekers from coming across the border illegally, by reviving and toughening pre-pandemic penalties, and enacting new legal ways to seek asylum aimed at curbing smuggling.
The transition to the new system began on Friday night, amid legal challenges and last-minute attempts by migrants to cross borders reinforced with barbed wire and troops. A federal judge in Florida directed what could be a serious legal setback to the plan by temporarily halting the administration’s attempt to release immigrants faster when Border Patrol detention centers become full.
The new rules come after the end of the rule known as Title 42, in place since March 2020, which allowed border officials to quickly return asylum seekers to their country across the border on the basis of preventing the spread of the Corona epidemic. While that rule stopped many asylum seekers, it had no legal repercussions and encouraged repeat attempts. After Thursday, the immigrants face a five-year ban from entering the United States and possibly criminal prosecution.
Migrants crowded at the US borders, and the number of waiting reached about 60,000, according to the channel CBS Newsbefore the start of the new rules.
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said his agency is preparing to try to enter the tens of thousands of immigrants on the Mexican side of the border into the United States. For his part, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorcas said that 24 border agents are ready to stem the flow of migrants. President Joe Biden has been criticized for implementing hard-line policies, which his predecessor Donald Trump had previously criticized.
channel indicated ABC News To Biden’s previous criticism of Trump, in which he said that he is the first president in the history of the United States of America to make anyone who wants asylum do so in another country, explaining that this has never happened before in the country. And Biden added at the time, saying: You come to the United States and present your case, this is how asylum is, based on the following hypothesis: Why do I deserve it under American law.
But now, Biden is facing the same criticism he did two years ago, this time from some members of his own party, human rights groups and immigration lawyers who say he is doing something close to what Trump did.
And Julian Castro, who worked with Biden in Barack Obama’s government and ran in the 2020 Democratic primary, wrote that promises were not kept.
But Biden administration officials were quick to reject the idea, and said that the new asylum restrictions announced by the administration are not close to what Trump tried to do. Alejandro Mayorkas said that Biden has led the expansion of legal avenues more than anyone else in the history of America.
