A week after President Joe Biden He signed an executive document for “suspension of access”. Several Department of Homeland Security officials said the number of immigrants crossing the border illegally has dropped by 25%, but officials are still releasing some illegal crossers into the United States.
In some areas, border agents are cracking down on migrants from Central America Back to Mexico instead of deporting them to their home countries, as the executive action detailed, according to an internal memo seen by immigration advocates and NBC News.
The memo was first reported by the New York Post.
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A senior DHS official said early numbers indicate that enforcement action deterred some migrants from crossing the southern border. Illegal crossings dropped from 4,000 a day last week to 3,000 on Tuesday, according to Customs and Border Protection data obtained by NBC News. Biden’s executive action, which limits the number of migrants who can apply for asylum, took effect at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, June 5.
A DHS official said that while the action bars migrants from seeking asylum if they cross the border illegally, the administration is still allowing illegal crossers to live in the U.S. while they pursue asylum claims in immigration court.
A senior DHS official said some migrants who have crossed illegally and been allowed into the United States since last Wednesday could be found ineligible for asylum hearings and sent home for violating executive authority.
Despite the move, which says the U.S. will deport anyone ineligible for asylum, immigration advocates say some parts of the border are sending migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador back to Mexico instead.
Without more money from Congress for detention and deportation flights, the Border Patrol will be forced to let some illegal crossers into the U.S., particularly those from countries Mexico does not want to admit, a senior DHS official said.
But those releases, which occurred before the enforcement action, have more than halved since it took effect, the official said.
In San Diego, where the number of migrants from China and elsewhere in the Eastern Hemisphere has increased this year, Border Patrol agents have been instructed to send migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras or Mexico back to Mexico, but from the Eastern Hemisphere and the U.S. to release migrants from any other countries within
A temporary drop?
A senior DHS official said it was too early to judge the effectiveness of Biden’s new policy.
The representative of the Border Control Union expects that the decrease in illegal border crossings will be short-term after the implementation of the executive measure.
“We see these reductions in crossings every time there’s a new policy, but these smugglers quickly change their strategies and businesses, and people and people smuggling will continue,” said Hector Garza, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council of Agents. union and a 24-year veteran of the Border Patrol based in Laredo, Texas.
Garza said the executive action has made no real difference and described the situation at the border as “status quo.”
The new policy may soon be blocked in court. In a Washington court filing on Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration along with several immigration organizations seeking to end the executive action.
Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney for the suit, said Biden’s policy is “nearly identical” to the policy adopted by Trump, which the ACLU successfully blocked.
“We are filing this lawsuit because this ban is clearly illegal. The Trump administration has implemented a nearly identical asylum ban. We filed a lawsuit about it. We won. We hope to win again,” said Gelernt.