New statistics obtained by THE TIME indicate a sharp increase in “express” deportations of thousands of Colombians who are arriving at the southern border of the United States.
(Also read: Colombians trying to cross the southern border of the United States, continues to rise)
According to Tom Cartwright of Witness on the Border, since March the US has sent 48 flights packed with nationals who were not allowed to stay in the US.
It is estimated that about 100 people travel on each of these flights.. for which the total would add about 5,000 people in these three months.
But the trend has been upward. From 10 flights in March it went to 18 in April, and more than 20 this last month of May.
In fact, according to Cartwright, in May they sent a daily flight with expelled and/or deported people (not counting weekends).
To give dimension to that figure, before March of this year, the average number of monthly flights was one per month.
These are the walls that migrants must cross to reach the United States.
The “express expulsion” of Colombians skyrocketed from that month after Washington reached an agreement with the national government to accept the return of these people without first subjecting them to the regular processing and deportation process that exists in USA
The decision was reached, in large part, due to the huge increase in Colombians trying to enter the US illegally or requesting asylum. To put it in context, throughout 2021 some 10,000 Colombians were arrested at the border.
But only in March of this year the arrests reached almost 16,000. In other words, in just one month there were more arrests than in all of last year. So far this fiscal year, the figures reach more than 55,000 people, five times more than in all of 2021.
What is Title 42 about and how does it apply to deportations?
Express expulsions are possible thanks to the controversial Title 42, a policy that started under the presidency of Donald Trump, but is still in force. This gave officials the authority to remove from the country anyone who showed up at the border. under the argument that there was a health emergency in the country caused by covid-19 and that migrants could aggravate it by spreading infections.
Biden tried to lift the measure starting this month, but a Louisiana judge blocked his decision. while the case is resolved in court.
(Recommended: the US will continue with the express expulsion of migrants after a judge’s decision)
Which means that, for now, expulsions through this policy will continue to be the daily bread. To clarify, the US is applying Title 42 to citizens of many nationalities and carries out this type of flight to several countries in the world. In the region Brazil, Ecuador and Haiti have been some of the most frequented destinations.
In the case of Venezuelans, who were also arriving en masse, the US has signed agreements with the countries where they resided prior to their arrival at the border, since they cannot return them to Caracas.
But for citizens of Mexico, or those who have borders with this country and other Central Americans, the process is even more radical. ¨In the case of the land border, they simply take the arrested person to the border line and leave him thereregardless of whether or not Mexican authorities are present, says Adam Isacson, security expert at Wola.
How does ‘express’ deportation work?
This is the distance that migrants walk to pass through ‘El Hollow’.
The question that many ask themselves is how this express expulsion process works that Colombians who arrive at the border and are detained are facing. This newspaper spoke with several experts on migration issues, including Cartwright and Isacson, to try to understand the mechanism.
According to these, once the national is detained by the Border Patrol (CPB for its acronym in English), faces two possible paths that are defined, for the most part, by the arresting officer.
The first is express removal through Title 42. The second is prosecution under Title 8. Title 8 is the mechanism normally used to prosecute detainees and that usually includes safeguards and guarantees that the emergency measure that gave life to Title 42 does not contemplate.
This route also includes a figure called “expedited deportation” and that is used to remove immigrants in an accelerated manner but that takes into account other criteria and consequences.
How that border official determines whether the person will be removed using Title 42 or Title 8 is a mystery. According to the experts, that depends a lot on the way the meeting takes place. If the person is caught while in the US, meaning they entered illegally and not through the border post, they are usually an immediate candidate for Title 42.
But the type of documentation that the immigrant carries at the time of arrest is also valued, if he can express in English that what he is looking for is an asylum and if he has proof that his life is in danger if he is returned to his country of origin. In turn, if it is a family nucleus or an adult traveling alone.
(You may be interested in: United States: what does Title 42 mean, express deportation measure?)
Once the official decides that the person is going for Title 42, the process is rather dizzying. Most of the Colombians are being detained in El Paso, Texas, or Yuma, Arizona.
From there they are transferred to the custody of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE), that transports them on lateral flights to Laredo, Texas, where they are loaded onto a plane bound for Bogotá.
In the case of the land border, they simply take the arrested person to the border line and leave him there, regardless of whether authorities are present or not.
Adam Isacson, Wola security expert.
As usual, this process does not last more than 3 to 5 days because the protocols of Title 42 establish that the person cannot remain under arrest for a longer time.
During that period, and given that the person is going to be expelled, they do not have access to lawyers, a hearing before immigration judges or the NGOs that are dedicated to this issue.
But the process, according to Cartwright, tends to be arbitrary. ¨If they are expelling about 2,000 people a month (in May), that means that there are another 10,000 or more people who stay and are processed by Title 8. That does not mean that they are going to be released because many end up being deported expeditiously or summarily through the same Title 8, but not at the same speed and you probably have a better chance of having your asylum case heard¨, affirms this analyst.
Namely, in practice, the US would only be returning between 15 and 20 percent of all people arriving at the border on these planes and cannot be left in Mexico.
For this reason, for Cartwright, Washington would be using these flights with the intention of dissuading illegal immigration from the countries of the region. If people know that there is a plane waiting to return them, says this analyst, they will probably think twice before venturing on the dangerous journey through “the gap”.
Reference image. Migrants crossing the Rio Grande to reach the United States.
Some of that has been seen with citizens of other nationalities, such as Brazilians and Ecuadorians, whose numbers began to decline once word spread that they were being returned almost immediately.
The problem, says Isacson, is that the procedure can end up as a kind of revolving door.
Since expulsions through Title 42 do not have legal consequences in the US -because they are expulsions and not deportations- the person can attempt the trip the day after being returned. Something that is seen a lot among people who are returned by the land border.
Many, in fact, try several times with the hope that in one of those they will either manage to go unnoticed or their case will be referred to an asylum process through Title 8.
The complexity of Title 8 is that this mechanism, unlike Title 42, produces legal consequences. If the person is denied entry, either because of the summary removal mechanism or because their asylum application was denied by an immigration judge, they cannot attempt to enter the US for a period of 5 years.
Even so, thousands of migrants continue to try their luck. That’s because the chances of “crowning” are still high. Since Biden became president, immigration authorities have detained more than 2.7 million migrants. But of those, it has only returned 1.3 million through Title 42 (approximately 50 percent).
In the case of Colombians, the number of expelled is even lower (approximately 20 percent in May).
And while many of those who are saved end up being deported sooner or later, the chance of being granted asylum is relatively high: 67 percent in 2021. The problem is that this procedure can take years. In this same period, the US only processed 55,000 cases among the millions it has dammed up in the system.
During that time the migrants may be under arrest or remotely monitored and in most cases without a work permit. Which pushes them to a life in illegality.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
Washington correspondent
TIME
On Twitter: @ sergom68
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