President Biden faces intensified pressure from his own party to stop deporting migrants in pandemic era border restriction that on Thursday the top Democrats in Congress vigorously denounced as an “inhumane” relic of the Trump administration evading U.S. asylum laws.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joined other Democratic lawmakers in urging Mr. Biden to stop the expulsion policy, which has allowed U.S. border agents to deport migrants more than 1.6 million times in two years. He described the policy, known as Title 42, as an illegal program with “disastrous” consequences for asylum seekers.
“Now, more than a year after the Biden administration took office, it is unacceptable that this policy continues to be used indiscriminately to withdraw migrants with valid asylum claims from our southern border,” said Schumer, a New Democrat. York, to reporters during an organized call. by migrant advocates.
Under Title 42, migrants are quickly deported to Mexico or their countries of origin without being allowed to seek protection in the United States. Like the Trump administration, the Biden administration has argued that the policy is necessary to minimize the risk of coronavirus outbreaks at border detention facilities.
To argue his case, Schumer on Thursday cited the story of Sofia, a Ukrainian mother who was rejected on Wednesday at the southern U.S. border. “That’s not who we are,” he said.
Sofia and her three children, ages 14, 12, and 6, later left Ukraine Russian forces attacked at the end of last month, fleeing to Moldova and then to Romania, according to the family’s lawyer, Blaine Bookey. The family then flew to Mexico and tried to seek asylum in the United States at the port of entry connecting Tijuana and San Diego.
The family was hoping to reunite with relatives in California. But U.S. officials have repeatedly rejected them at the port of entry, Bookey said, accompanying the family during one of the attempts Wednesday.
Guillermo Asias / AFP via Getty Images
“I spoke to the CBP supervisor, who told me that Title 42 is in effect and that there are no exceptions, and unless someone at a high level tells you otherwise, she won’t go in,” Bookey, a Central California attorney. Center for Gender and Refugee Studies told CBS News.
Sofia and her children had to return to their hotel in Tijuana on Wednesday night. But after lawyers disclosed the family’s situation and pleaded with government officials to allow the family to seek asylum, Sofia and her children were able to enter the United States on Thursday, Bookey said.
Bookey said the way the U.S. initially treated the family contradicts the Biden administration’s vocal support for the more than 2.3 million people who have fled the conflict in Ukraine over the past two weeks.
“How can the administration express its support for the Ukrainians and offer protections to the Ukrainians and at the same time maintain this policy that has no basis in public health, violates our laws and puts people in these dangerous conditions?” Bookey asked.
However, Bookey said Sofia and her children were relatively lucky, noting that many migrants she met recently in Tijuana, including a Haitian mother with three children, have been barred from seeking refuge in the United States.
Along with growing Democratic criticism, the continuation of Title B of the Biden administration has been complicated by two court rulings in a duel last week that could cause the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change, or even everything was ruled out, the public health order authorizing the expulsions.
Last Friday, an appeals court in Washington, DC, barrat U.S. officials deport families with children to countries where they could be persecuted or tortured while serving as federal judge in Texas governed that the administration could not continue to exempt unaccompanied children from expulsions.
The first sentence will not be binding until next month, but the second is expected to take effect on Friday and could force the administration to revive the Trump-era practice of expelling unaccompanied minors.
The Justice Department has not yet appealed the ruling or requested its suspension. Representatives of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border guards, did not say how they plan to comply with the sentences or respond to Democratic criticism of Title 42.
Representatives of the CDC, which is supposed to decide whether to maintain, change or cancel its Title 42 order in early April, did not immediately respond to the request for comment.
Katie McTiernan / Anadolu Agency through Getty Images
In light of recent rulings, the Biden administration should end Title 42 completely and stop defending it in federal court, said New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democratic chairman of the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee. Senate. “Expelling children is not who we are as a nation,” he said during the call with Schumer.
While they have criticized other pandemic restrictions, Republican lawmakers have strongly supported Title 42 and would likely criticize the Biden administration for ending politics. In fact, they have accused the administration of not using Title 42 widely enough, criticizing the release of some migrants allowed to remain in the United States.
But Menendez said the completion of Title 42 would align with the recent relaxation of other pandemic restrictions, such as mask warrants. He said officials may have had some “space” at the beginning of the administration to enforce Title 42 due to lack of vaccines and other pandemic conditions. But “this space is now closed,” he said.
“This pandemic, due to the actions of the administration itself, is now in a different phase,” he said. “In my opinion, that also means that Title 42 should be in a different phase, a phase that is coming to an end.”
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- immigration
- Border between Mexico and the United States
- US Customs and Border Protection
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