In recent weeks, the United States has been accelerating the expulsion of Colombians who have been detained on the border between this country and Mexico.
In accordance with a report from Witnesses on the Border, Based on official statistics, from the Customs Immigration Service (ICE, for its acronym in English), since March 1 there have already been 12 flights that have arrived in Bogotá full of compatriots.
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It is estimated that in total they would be at least 1,200 people, most of them expelled using the controversial title 42, which does not require the judicial procedure that is applied to immigrants who arrive at the border seeking asylum.
The last two flights were on Friday of last week and this Monday.
Two weeks ago, Migración Colombia acknowledged that it had reached an agreement with the United States to receive Colombians expelled under title 42. At that time, it spoke of six repatriation flights with some 600 Colombians.
In other words, since then there have been six additional flights (one every two or three days).
Colombia is part of a group of six countries that is currently accepting direct flights with those expelled through Title 42.
The other five are: Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Honduras, El Salvador and Haiti.
Not counting the two flights that were presented this April, Colombia was the fourth country in the world where more people were returned in March using these repatriation flights, which are paid for by the United States.
President Joe Biden will suspend removals beginning May 23.
Ting Shen/Bloomberg
The first was Guatemala (41 flights), followed by Honduras (34), El Salvador (13). Haiti added the same number of flights as Colombia, according to the Witnesses on the Border report, which was written by Tom Cartwright.
The United States began to expel Colombians in an “express” manner after registering an avalanche of Colombians who were arriving at the border asking for asylum.
Between October 2019 and March of this year, the number grew by 20,000 percent: from 42 at the end of that year to 9,600 last month.
But the sharpest jump in terms of the number of people began to be seen from January of this year, when some 3,000 people were detained and from there it jumped to more than 9,000 in March.
It was this, according to the sources, that led the United States to seek an agreement with the Colombian government.
It is, however, a controversial agreement. Title 42 allows the expulsion of people without regular procedure alleging a health emergency caused by covid-19.
But his critics allege that it is just a way of expelling immigrants without offering them the guarantees of the regular process offered to asylum seekers.
Especially since there are vaccines and the United States reopened all its ports and borders.
In fact, border states like Texas and Arizona They declared the end of the pandemic months ago and ended all precautionary measures to avoid contagion.
However, the authorities in them continue to request that this procedure be used to remove immigrants.
Last week, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC (for its acronym in English), ended the health emergency that gave life to Title 42.
Consequently, the Joe Biden administration announced a process to gradually eliminate expulsions in this way and that should conclude on May 23.
But everything indicates, due to the high rate of removal of Colombians, that they want to return as many people as possible before that window closes.
In fact, according to Witnesses on the Border, during March there was an increase in ICE flights of 13 percent compared to February, but 157 percent if you look at the figures for this same month in 2021.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
Correspondent of THE TIME
Washington
On Twitter @sergom68
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