‘The situation has turned catastrophic’

US President Joe Biden is sending 1,500 troops to the Mexican border. By doing so, he expects the Corona measure, which makes it possible to immediately turn undocumented immigrants back across the border, will disappear. “Biden is trying to eat it both ways.”

The public health emergency in the US ends on May 11. One of the measures being dropped is ‘Title 42’. It dates back to 1893 and was intended to protect America against diseases such as cholera, yellow fever, malaria, and tuberculosis.

In practice, the U.S. has used the health measure for the past three years to immediately deport immigrants without visas. This measure is effective from March 2020. Then-President Donald Trump, who, incidentally, called Mexicans crossing the border “rapists” when announcing his candidacy in the 2016 elections was happy to seize on Title 42.

But even under President Biden, the measure remains a cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy. In total, more than 2.5 million people re-crossed the border via this route.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not been required to retain Title 42 since April of last year, it has remained in effect. Biden’s previous effort to raise it was thwarted by some Republican governors. “They are asking for the opposite, that is, to militarize the border,” says US expert Willem Post (Klingendale Institute). “In doing so, they got conservative Supreme Court justices on their side.”

Political dynamite

This shows how sensitive the topic of migration is in the United States. Especially in the southern part of the country, the number of people trying to cross the border has increased. Between October 2021 and September 2022, 2.3 million people have done just that: the highest number ever. A year ago, it was 1.7 million people, then a record.

Large numbers create chaos in the south of the country. Many migration centers cannot cope with the flow of people crossing the border. As a result, many migrants are forced to spend the night on the streets.

The general fear is that lifting Title 42 will result in more people trying to cross the border. That’s one reason Biden is now sending 1,500 troops to the Mexican border. Their mission is to provide administrative support to their 2,500 colleagues guarding the border.

According to the Post, it’s no coincidence that Biden is taking action now at election time. “Biden presents himself as a centrist politician, and he wants to show it off Tough on crime May be. He is trying to eat both ways: on the one hand by emphasizing the importance of human rights, and on the other hand by showing that he wants to deal with illegal practices.”

This ambiguous approach has drawn a lot of criticism from Republicans and within his own Democratic Party. In that sense, Andrea Flores’ tweet may count. Until recently, he was in charge of policy on the border under Biden. According to him, the administration “had more than two years to phase out Title 42. However, the situation has turned into a major disaster that will once again send troops to the border communities.

The image of soldiers heading to the border is emotional, especially since more than 5,000 soldiers have deployed there under Trump. It’s particularly sensitive for Biden, who went to voters promising to clean up the mess at Trump’s bottom border, detaining children in detention centers as the lowest point. Biden has wrestled with that promise for two years.

processing centers

Many expected immigration policies under Biden to diverge greatly from those of his predecessors. “But don’t forget that Biden has always had a very ‘old-school’ approach and has always been concerned about how his policies will be transmitted to the public,” said Susan Fratzke, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). ) think tank. “While Biden hasn’t completely reversed Trump’s tough border enforcement, he’s never gone back to the draconian measures that Trump did, such as detaining children. Barack Obama also stood up for tough border enforcement: He ultimately sent more immigrants back to their homelands than his Republican predecessor, Bush.

Biden’s plans to deal with the loss of Title 42 fall into two groups. He wants to crack down on illegal border crossings, while on the other hand creating alternative, legal routes to immigrate to the US. The most significant move is the US plans to set up regional ‘processing centres’ in Guatemala and Colombia where migrants can apply for asylum.

“The challenge for these centers is how they operate,” says Fratske. “The US is already facing difficulties in processing visa applications. For this to work, things have to move very fast. In addition to logistics, there is also the question of how people will view the centers and what this will mean for the number of migrants crossing the southern border. It’s a political challenge for Biden.