Eighty days after President Joe Biden issued his new asylum restriction order, the United States government has rapidly expelled more than 92,000 people to more than 130 countries from the various borders with Mexico.
According to Luis Miranda, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the average daily number of irregular crossings decreased from 4,000 to 1,800, a 55 percent reduction but still short of the 1,500 daily encounters targeted for lifting the presidential restriction. On June 4, 2024, President Joe Biden announced a Presidential Proclamation to temporarily suspend the entry of noncitizens across the southern border. The Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General’s Office also jointly issued an interim final rule (IFR) that, in accordance with the proclamation, as of June 5 restricts asylum eligibility for most individuals who enter irregularly across the southern border, including the southwestern land border and the southern coastal border. Since then, encounters at ports of entry have decreased by 55 percent, with “a significant increase in the number of migrants expelled and returned to their countries of origin and a decrease in the number of people released pending their removal proceedings,” reported the United States Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP), through its latest monthly report. In the El Paso Sector, the average number of irregular crossings per day decreased by 50.46 percent, from an average of 757 in May to 375 in July. Yesterday, through a virtual press conference with the Chihuahua media, Miranda recalled that the restriction will be removed until Border Patrol agents have an average of 1,500 or fewer encounters per day for seven consecutive days. But the official also recalled that the border has never been legally open to irregular migration and that once the measure ends, people will continue to be processed under Title 8. “The number of daily encounters has remained at more or less the same levels in recent weeks, it goes up and down, but it has remained more or less below 55 percent less than what was seen before these measures went into effect. We are still at a level above 1,800 daily encounters, so it is difficult to know if they will be reduced enough to suspend the limitation on entries, but something we have to clarify: it is important that people understand that it has never been legal for people to cross the border without inspection and try to enter the United States between ports of entry,” he stressed. “The difference is that thanks to the president’s measures we have been able to apply expedited deportation processes to more people, so we have, for example, doubled the percentage of people who are placed in expedited deportation processes daily,” Miranda explained. He reported that since the presidential proclamation went into effect, the United States has expelled more than 92,000 people to more than 130 countries, on more than 300 international flights. And that these have been from their countries of origin or third countries. “When these measures are lifted, it is still illegal to cross the border without authorization and there are still consequences for illegal crossing, including deportation, which includes being banned from entering the United States for five years or more, and which includes criminal prosecution for people who are repeat offenders,” he said.
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