This is the lowest level since Feb 2021. This marked the beginning of an unprecedented rise in migrant arrivals.
According to Customs and Border Protection data, U.S. border officers processed migrants 153941 times in January, according to Texas federal court records. This number is the second-highest monthly drop in migrant arrests under the Biden administration. However, it’s an all-time high for January according to historical Border Patrol Data.
Over half of the migrants taken into U.S. border custody January were quickly expelled to Mexico and their home countries by the Trump-era Title 42 Emergency Order. This order was said to be necessary to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in migrant detention centers.
Another 75,455 migrants were also processed in regular immigration procedures. This means that they are either taken to long-term centers, placed in expedited removal proceedings or released to continue their civil immigration court proceedings in U.S. communities.
CBP officials deported or returned 6,775 immigrants under U.S immigration law in January. Migrants processed under immigration law can request asylum to avoid deportation, unlike those who are subject to Title 42.
Democratic lawmakers are putting pressure on the Biden administration to stop Title 42 expulsions. These were authorized first by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in March 2020, over objections from public health experts at the agency.
The Biden administration stated earlier this month that expulsions would be in effect for the moment due to the Omicron variant’s spread, which was discovered in the U.S. in late last year.
A letter sent to Mr. Biden by more than 100 Democrats on Wednesday condemned Title 42. They highlighted the policy’s negative impact on Black migrants, such as the thousands of Haitians expelled from crisis-stricken Haiti in the recent months.
The lawmakers stated that it was time to reverse the United States’ draconian immigration policy, especially those implemented under Trump Administration.
Republican lawmakers who blamed last year’s record number of migrant detentions on Mr. Biden’s reverse of some Trump-era restrictions have asked the administration to keep expulsions going. They claim that migrant arrivals will rise even further if Title 42 is repealed.
His administration removed unaccompanied children from Title 42 shortly after he took office. The policy was mainly used to exempt unaccompanied children from Title 42 in Mexico and Central America, although Mexican officials have set limits on how many families can be returned.
Biden’s administration also has struggled to apply the expulsion policies to migrants from Venezuela and Nicaragua, given Mexico’s decision not to accept return of citizens or migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador under Title 42.
At the request of the U.S. last month, the Mexican government imposed visa requirements for Venezuelans. Many of these Venezuelans were travelling by air to Mexico City, before crossing the border into the United States by land.
Mexico has ended visa-free travel to the U.S. for citizens from Brazil and Ecuador as part of its efforts to decrease the flow of migrants to the country. This was done in response to record numbers of people who walked to the southern border during the first year of Mr. Biden’s term. The U.S. border saw a drop in the number of migrants from these countries.
Biden’s administration also has been enrolling Nicaraguans (and Venezuelans) in a Trump-era program, which requires them to wait in Mexico for their U.S. asylum hearings. A government report indicates that 92% of the 673 migrants who were subject to the policy’s court-ordered revival hail from these three countries.
According to a memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), CBS News obtained an internal memo.
According to the ICE memo, the home curfew program will be piloted by ICE in Houston and Baltimore. It could be scaled to accommodate as many as 150,000 migrants. Axios first reported the pilot.
“I believe they are slowly pivoting to life after Title 42. “You’re starting to see elements of a future strategy for managing border, which is different than what we’ve seen over the past year,” stated Andrew Selee of the non-partisan Migration policy Institute.
A rule is being finalized by the Biden administration that will allow asylum officers to review all claims of migrants, rather than sending them to immigration courts. This would speed up the asylum process, as it will allow asylum officers to complete their reviews of these claims.
Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security Secretary, stated that the asylum rule will be a major component of the Biden administration’s border policy after Title 42.
Mayorkas stated, “We see that as a really powerful improvement to a broken systems.”
