controversial title 42the norm in the United States allowed hot deportation of immigrants for public health reasons, ended at 9:59 p.m. local time this Thursday in El Paso (Texas), where local, state and federal officials are racing against the clock to prepare for a greater influx of people.
Despite criticism from his own party, imposed under former President Donald Trump (2017-2021), praised by Republicans, vilified by human rights activists, and sustained by Democrat Joe Biden’s government, his uprising sparked rumors and a new politics. war between progressives and conservatives.
Silence reigned outside Gate 42 of the border fence between Mexico and the United States, about 15 kilometers east of the town of El Paso (Texas). Dozens of journalists and several Border Patrol agents were deployed on the north side of the fence. South of the fifteen-metre-high wall, out of sight, between the fence and the Rio Grande, about 400 refugees are waiting to be processed and transferred to centers run by the authorities.
At 3:15 p.m. the operation of the border guards began and transported the most vulnerable migrants, especially the little ones, in a bus and several minibuses. Raúl Ortiz, head of the national-level Border Patrol, pointed out that this afternoon the processing and transfer operation will take 24 hours. A border guard standing by the gate confirmed that the transfer would continue and insisted that the priority be to get the children, but added that the temperature was mild and would not pose a danger to those waiting.
“Beginning tonight, people who come to the border without using legal means will not be considered eligible for asylum. We are ready to process and humanely deport those who have no legal basis to stay in the US,” the minister said in a statement. said. Alejandro Majorca from National Security. “Do not believe the lies of human smugglers. border is not open‘, he warned.
From now on, Title 8, the norm that historically governed immigration in the United States, will apply to refugees entering the country. In addition, the Government of President Joe Biden announced new measures restricting access to asylum applications at the Mexican border. These new measures consider immigrants who cross the border irregularly and do not seek protection in a third country during their journey to the United States as “unfit” to seek asylum.
However, knowledge spread from the most conservative sections of the Republican Party that the abolition of Title 42 practically required a policy of open doors to immigration. “Texas is resisting as President Biden opens the floodgates for more illegal immigration,” Greg Abbott, the governor of that border state, insisted this afternoon.
The military will supplement its surveillance efforts with 1,500 soldiers, the state has sent reinforcements from the National Guard, and the city of El Paso, for example, has set up 4,500 beds to receive refugees who have passed the police screening and fully cooperated. Security forces will evacuate the migrant camp set up around a church in the center of the city a few days ago.