US has turned back 41,000 migrants at border
TUCSON — The U.S. government has turned away more than 41,000 migrants apprehended at the U.S.Mexico border since late March, when President Donald Trump’s administration implemented emergency orders to block asylum-seekers as the country shut down to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Border agents turned back to their countries of origin nearly 92% of the 21,475 migrants processed at southwestern border in May, according to enforcement statistics released Friday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
CBP on March 20 restricted access for migrants at the border, citing an emergency order from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowing the U.S. to block the entry of certain groups of people to limit the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
As part of the policy, the border agency set up a system to fast-track the removal of migrants to avoid holding them at permanent facilities at the border. CBP said they expelled the overwhelming majority of migrants (96%) they encountered in May in under two hours.
At the time when Customs and Border Protection implemented the emergency order, cases were already rising rapidly within the U.S. The agency claimed the restrictions at the border were needed to keep the virus out.
“CBP is taking this unprecedented action to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as the case count in Latin America is dramatically increasing,” a statement from CBP reiterated.
Critics accuse the Trump administration of using the pandemic as an excuse to implement restrictive policies.
They pointed to a sweeping proposed new rule the administration unveiled Wednesday. A series of proposed changes outlined in the new rule redefines who is eligible for asylum, and makes it easier for judges to deny claims.
“The rule guarantees that America will send many thousands of people back to face persecution, torture, and death. Nearly all of this new rule explicitly intends to narrow the scope of asylum to make it possible to send people back despite admitted proof that they will face these threats upon their return,” said David Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute.
The Trump administration has had mixed success with previous attempts to restrict asylum at the border. Federal courts have blocked some proposed changes, while allowing others, such as a ban on asylum for migrants who didn’t seek asylum in a third country before arriving in the U.S.
Several cities along the Mexican side of border such as Mexicali and Ciudad Juárez have been especially hit hard by the pandemic as the coronavirus spread through their extensive manufacturing networks and overwhelmed their health systems.
Cities on the U.S. side of the border also are facing high infection rates and hospitalizations as states like Arizona and New Mexico see an increase in community transmission cases after relaxing social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
May’s numbers show a slight increase in apprehensions compared to April, despite the restrictions over the pandemic, indicating more migrants are willing to risk exposure to COVID-19 in order to reach the United States.
CBP statistics also showed more migrants were willing to risk their safety, as dangerous smuggling tactics such as the use of tractor trailers or other vehicles to smuggle migrants continued. On June 2, a migrant and a smuggler died when their vehicle rolled over during a chase with Border Patrol agents near Douglas, Arizona.
“Migrants should never listen to the false promises of smuggling organizations, who don’t care about their health and safety,” Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said. “It’s a dangerous, potentially deadly journey that will be futile if they survive. If they reach our border, they will be expeditiously sent back and not allowed to stay in the United States.”
The agency logged 445 rescues of migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in May, twice the number during the previous month, CBP said. Rescues in places such as the parched Arizona desert rise seasonally around this time of the year as triple-digit temperatures set in for the summer along large portions of the border.
CBP said the majority of migrant apprehensions in May consisted of single adult men from Mexico, as opposed to Central American families, which made up the largest share of apprehensions at the border at this same time last year.