US steps up effort to unite families separated at border
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is expanding its effort to find and reunite migrant families who were separated at the U.s.-mexico border under President Donald Trump as part of a zero-tolerance policy on illegal crossings.
A federal task force launched a new program Monday that officials say will expand efforts to find parents, many of whom are in remote Central American communities, and help them return to the United States, where they will get at least three years of legal residency and other assistance.
“We recognize that we can’t make these families completely whole again,” said Michelle Brané, executive director of the administration’s Family Reunification Task Force. “But we want to do everything we can to put them on a path towards a better life.”
The new program, which includes a contract with the International Organization for Migration to help with the often-complex task of getting expelled migrants back to the U.S., is a reflection of just how difficult it has been for President Joe Biden’s administration to address a chapter in U.S. immigration history that drew widespread condemnation.
The task force has reunited about 50 families since starting its work in late February, but there are hundreds of parents – perhaps between 1,000 and 2,000 – who were separated from their children and have not been located. A lack of accurate records from the Trump administration makes it diffi
The report didn’t look at the shortterm impacts of climate change, such as the effects of extreme weather events, and did not look at climate migration across borders.
In the worst-case scenario, Sub-saharan Africa – the most vulnerable region due to desertification, fragile coastlines and the population’s dependence on agriculture – would see the most migrants, with up to 86 million people moving within national borders.
North Africa, however, is predicted to have the largest proportion of climate migrants, with 19 million people moving, equivalent to roughly 9% of its population, due mainly to increased water scarcity in northeastern Tunisia;northwestern Algeria; western and southern Morocco; and the central Atlas foothills, the report said.
In South Asia, Bangladesh is particularly affected by flooding and crop failures, accounting for almost half of the predicted climate migrants, with 19.9 million people, including an increasing number of women, moving by 2050 under the pessimistic scenario.
“This is our humanitarian reality right now, and we are concerned this is going to be even worse where vulnerability is more acute,” said Maarten van Aalst, director of the International Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, who wasn’t involved with the report.
While climate change’s influence on migration is not new, it is often one of multiple factors pushing people to move. People affected by conflicts and inequality are also more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change as they have limited means to adapt.
“Globally we know that three out of four people that move stay within countries,” said Dr. Kanta Kumari Rigaud, a lead environmental specialist at the World Bank and co-author of the report.
The report also warns that migration hot spots could appear within the next decade and intensify by 2050. Planning is needed both in the areas to which people will move, and in the areas they leave to help those who remain.
Among the actions recommended were achieving “net zero emissions by mid-century to have a chance at limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius” and investing in development that is “green, resilient, and inclusive, in line with the Paris Agreement.”
Clement and Rigaud warned that the worst-case scenario is still plausible if collective action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in development isn’t taken soon, especially in the next decade.