From Yahoo:
“Bruised by border politics,
some Biden officials cling to Trump restrictions”
Jasibi says she fled her hometown
in Honduras after a gang killed her parents and gave her 24 hours to leave the
country. The 37-year-old headed north, hoping to seek asylum in the United
States, but earlier this year was blocked by a Trump-era health order left in
place by President Joe Biden. The order enables U.S. officials to rapidly expel
migrants at both the southern and northern borders during the COVID-19
pandemic, essentially cutting off access to asylum for most migrants. In
Mexico, with nowhere to go and few funds, she slept on the street and was
kidnapped, according to a request to the U.S. government for a humanitarian
exception to the order seen by Reuters. The kidnappers wanted to extort money
from her family, Jasibi said. Jasibi - who asked Reuters not to publish her
surname for fear of reprisals - called migrant advocate Ariana Sawyer at Human
Rights Watch daily to check on her application for the exemption. But when
Sawyer tried to call her last month with the good news that she would be
allowed into the United States, she couldn't reach her – Jasibi had been
kidnapped again.
Biden, who took office on Jan.
20, is under growing pressure from migrant advocates, health experts and fellow
Democrats to end the policy, known as Title 42, as more evidence emerges that
migrants are being expelled into danger in Mexico. Publicly, the Biden
administration insists the order remains necessary to limit the spread of the
coronavirus, although it has not provided scientific data to support that
rationale and many public health experts have opposed it. Internally, however,
some officials characterize the restrictions not as a health measure but as a
politically expedient tool to control the border at a time when the
administration is facing the most border crossers in 20 years, according to
five sources familiar with the deliberations. Even some more liberal Biden
officials are apprehensive that any further spike in migration after lifting
the order could erode public support for Biden's more welcoming immigration
agenda, two of the sources said. While advocates for migrants have expressed
skepticism over the administration's stated reasons for maintaining Title 42,
this internal view has not been previously reported.
A White House spokesperson said
Title 42 was a public health directive, not an immigration enforcement tool,
and was still necessary on health grounds, as only about 40% of the U.S.
population has been fully vaccinated. The White House declined to comment on
the reports of internal divisions in the administration. Biden has filled many
key immigration advisory positions with high-profile migrant advocates,
including some opponents of the Title 42 border restrictions. For instance,
Andrea Flores, a former deputy director for immigration policy with the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is now director for transborder security
in Biden's National Security Council. Flores criticized Title 42 last year
while working for the ACLU, saying former President Donald Trump was
"hellbent on exploiting a public health crisis to achieve his long-held
goal of ending asylum at the border." Flores did not respond to a request
for comment. The White House declined to comment.
Former advocates now in the
administration are "all in a little bit of an identity crisis,"
according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter, who spoke about the
emotional difficulty of implementing policies that they would have fought
against just months earlier. The U.S. official also said that staff at the
Department of Health and Human Services refugee office have urged the White
House to end the expulsion policy, arguing that families are sending children
across the border alone since unaccompanied children are being allowed in. As
with others, the official requested anonymity to discuss the internal debate. Since
Biden took office, U.S. border authorities have recorded more than 300,000
expulsions under Title 42. The vast majority of the expelled migrants are
Mexicans and Central Americans pushed back across the border after attempting
to cross illegally. Repeat crossings are common.
CREDIBILITY 'TARNISHED' The
Title 42 health order, issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in March 2020, allows for rapid expulsion and effectively cuts
off the ability of most single adults and many families to claim asylum in the
United States. Many medical experts are vocally opposed to the policy. Dozens
of leaders of medical schools, hospitals and other institutions wrote in a May
2020 letter to U.S. health officials that it was not supported by scientific
evidence. Six health experts who signed that letter told Reuters that
the argument against the restrictions was even stronger now that many Americans
were vaccinated and COVID-19 caseloads were falling in the United States. "I
think every day that Title 42 remains on the books, the CDC's credibility is
tarnished," said Joseph Amon, director of the office of global health at
Drexel University.
The CDC did not respond to
requests for comment. A DHS official, who asked to remain anonymous, said the
department is working with the CDC to determine when the policy and other
pandemic-related border restrictions could be safely lifted. The health agency
would make the final decision, the official stressed. U.S. officials have said
the Title 42 border restrictions are partly needed to protect government
workers. More than three quarters of frontline DHS workers have been vaccinated
so far and all have been offered a vaccine, DHS said. Another stated reason is
to guard against infected migrants spreading the disease. While there are no
overall figures on positive coronavirus rates for migrants caught at the
U.S.-Mexico border, fewer than 0.5% of asylum seekers entering the United
States legally through a separate program have tested positive. Amid the
internal debate over how and when to end Title 42 and the growing external
pressure, the Biden administration has phased in a number of exceptions to the
policy, allowing more migrants into the country. In recent weeks the United
States began admitting asylum seekers whom migrant advocates had identified as
being especially vulnerable in Mexico. "The number of people needing to go
through this process is pretty overwhelming," said Sawyer, the advocate
with Human Rights Watch. On June 1, Sawyer got a call from Jasibi, the Honduran
woman who was granted a humanitarian exception to the order. She had been
kidnapped while shopping at a market, she said, but escaped a few days later,
after her kidnappers left her alone in a house. Sawyer told her she would be
allowed to enter the United States, but she would have to get to the Del Rio,
Texas, port of entry - 56 miles (90 km) away - by the next day. Jasibi got on a
bus at 11 p.m. Without identity documents or legal permission to travel in Mexico,
she risked being detained by Mexican police if stopped. Jasibi arrived in
Ciudad Acuna, across the border from Del Rio, at 3 a.m. A few hours and a
negative COVID-19 test later, she was in the United States.
^ This is more about Biden,
Harris and his advisors who have no clue how to deal with all the illegals that
continue to try and come into the US. Biden once welcomed them so now that he
is trying to unwelcome them means they continue to come in droves. So far Biden
has only been able to fix the Covid Pandemic, but nothing else (the economy,
illegal immigration, legal immigration, etc.) Not a very good record. ^
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