Policy lets migrants skip dangerous journeys

LEHIGH ACRES, Fla. — Five years ago, Alexis Llanos and his family fled Venezuela for Colombia, escaping death threats and political persecution. They planned to make the dangerous journey north and eventually cross illegally into the United States.

Their plans changed when a friend mentioned a new U.S. migration program that would allow them to stay put while they pleaded for a chance to come legally. It worked. After a four-month process that included medical exams and interviews with the United Nations and the U.S., Llanos, his partner and their 7-year-old girl and 3-year-old boy arrived in Florida.

They were among the first migrants allowed into the U.S. under the Biden administration’s new “safe mobility offices,” set up in Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Ecuador beginning in the fall. The program is designed to streamline the U.S. refugee process so migrants don’t give up and pay smugglers to make the journey north, further straining the U.S.-Mexico border, which has seen recordhigh numbers of crossings.

So far, 3,000 refugees have arrived in the U.S., and 9,000 have been approved. But it’s a small number compared with what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border, where there were more than 10,000 arrests for illegal crossing per day over several days in December alone. In cities including Chicago, New York and Denver, migrants who have no access to work permits sleep in police station foyers and in airports.

The Biden administration has worked to crack down on illegal crossings but has also sought to broaden legal pathways through efforts like the safe mobility initiative, to provide alternatives for migrants in the hope they don’t journey north.

Those who do arrive on foot at the U.S.-Mexico border and ask for asylum get a court date and must prove they are eligible to stay. The system is badly backlogged, so they often end up waiting years for a court date while they sit in limbo in the U.S. without authorization to work.

With the safe mobility initiative, they’re arriving as refugees who have already met the requirements and will be legally allowed to live and work in the U.S. The process takes only months, while more traditional refugee screening is a yearslong effort.

Immigrant advocates laud the new pathways but don’t think they replace asylum.

“It is absolutely critical that these pathways now exist,” said Hannah Flamm, policy counsel at the International Refugee Assistance Project. But, “no enhancement of access to refugee resettlement can ever come at the expense of the rights of asylum seekers at the border.”