A report by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry reveals that arrests — known by the euphemism “encounters” — of migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua at the border with the United States fell sharply in January. The text points to “a 97.5 percent reduction in Cuban nationals” and “a near-zero influx of Haitians.” This data, which will be sent to the Senate and to which EL PAÍS had access, is presented by the State Department as a success of recent policies agreed with Joe Biden to allow 30,000 migrants monthly access to the US from these four countries. Since the official statistics of the Customs and Border Control Board (CBP) are not known, experts warn of the increase in other irregular flows in addition to the strong arrival of applicants from new countries such as Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. All coupled with a reception system, says Andrés Rodríguez, head of the Mexican Refugee Assistance Commission (Comar), on the verge of collapse.
Last December, every immigration record was shattered: US border officials arrested 251,487 people, an average of more than 8,000 people a day. In the same month but in 2019, to put it in perspective, it was just 40,000. Of those detainees, according to CBP data, 202,000 were subjected to the so-called Title 8, which allows deportation to their countries of origin, and the rest, nearly 50,000, were sent to Mexico under the controversial Title 42. This old policy, revived by Donald Trump, allows foreign citizens, including asylum seekers, to be turned down on health grounds, in this case the coronavirus pandemic. A pretext rejected by human rights organizations and one that the Biden administration has not yet withdrawn
In this context, with Mexico as a tense security space and under pressure from the Republican States, with Texas at the fore, Biden announced on January 5 the implementation of a new program to issue 30,000 special permits every month for migrants from Venezuela, Cuba , Haiti and Nicaragua enter the country by air. The conditions included that they had someone in the US who endorsed them, that they were vaccinated and that they applied for this visa from outside the US. In return, the penalties were harsher. Those attempting to illegally cross the borders of Panama, Mexico or the United States would no longer be eligible for this program.
Tonatiuh Guillén, UNAM development studies expert, calls it the law of the hand and the club. “The positive is that there is a large number of applicants, but there is a very selective process: you have to have the sponsor, the internet capacity and the conditions to understand the process. Ultimately, this destroys the human right to asylum, because many people are excluded from this system,” explains the head of the Mexican immigration apparatus until his departure in 2019, after Donald Trump’s harsh demands. “Apart from being very energetic, if you enter infrequently you will be disqualified and people don’t want to risk being canceled so the flow is stemmed: it’s the soft wall, more effective than the hard wall. And cheaper.”
Graphic created by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs on arrests at the US-US border SRE
The foreign affairs report entitled “Unilateral Measures by the United States on the Implementation of Section 265 of Title 42 of the United States Code” paints a panorama of the triumph with this new policy. They said the applications of 26,000 Venezuelans, 4,800 Cubans, 2,000 Haitians and 800 Nicaraguans to enter the United States were approved in January this year. “This means that the new route into the US labor market is already a reality,” the document said. “Based on the data, a positive effect of implementing public policies for more orderly, safe, regular and humane migration for the benefit of migrants is observed.”
The counterpart to this program, which began in April with Ukrainian citizens and continued in October with 24,000 permits for Venezuelans, is that Mexico must allow migrants of these nationalities to return to its territory. Previously, applicants from these countries, with which the US government does not have an extradition treaty, had to wait on their side of the border. Now, with the deal with Mexico, the Biden administration will allow the 30,000 who arrive by plane with a prior application and selection process and can send the rest to their neighbor to the south — also with a maximum of 30,000 people.
This inevitably affects the Mexican asylum system. By the end of January this year, Comar had surpassed every record number of applications: more than 12,800 applicants — less than half this month last year, 5,800 — including 4,300 Haitians. “Last year’s monthly average was 1,429, so this month it’s almost three times more, bringing us to the level of 2021, when we had the historic record of 50,000 Haitians seeking refuge,” Andrés Rodríguez explained EL PAÍS holder. If there is a direct link between the fact that Haitians can now return to Mexico and the 42 case of Venezuelans It was insistent that all those deported to Mexico by the US did not want to stay in Mexico. They didn’t know what to do and applied for asylum en masse.” The Foreign Affairs Report says 16,268 Venezuelans were repatriated under Title 42 between October and January.
These returns stop squeezing a pot that is already boiling. “We are working on more efficient methods, we are doing what we can, but we are not magicians,” explains the Comar boss, who warns that without other migration alternatives and with the meager budget they manage, “there is always room for improvement.” is immaterial”. Last year it was almost 120,000 applicants, adding to the 130,000 in the previous year. The latest guidelines and Title 42 “do not help”: “Migrants see our asylum system as a stepping stone, get their savings and apply for these special visas. We must be careful to protect the people, but also the asylum system itself, not to become some kind of travel agency. We are on the verge of collapse.”
A Haitian migrant girl at a shelter in Tijuana on August 7, 2022.Fred Ramos (Bloomberg)
Special visas, a temporary brake?
The Foreign Ministry report does not include the development of arrests of other nationalities in January. In fact, in December, most of those arrested at the border were Mexicans, 48,179, followed by Guatemalans (14,800), Hondurans (13,100) and Salvadorans (4,800), according to CBP. In addition, as Tonatiuh Guillén warns, the arrival of new countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Colombia has increased in recent months. “These policies manage to reduce the influx of Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans, and later expand them to others? And another question is: What is the Mexican government doing in relation to the influx of Mexicans who make up 30% of the total? Why did they start dating again in 2020 after more than a decade of stability? In addition to fundamental economic reasons, it is due to internal displacement due to violence and insecurity,” emphasizes the expert.
The CBP figures include the cases of people detained, but it opens a gap of what happens to those who cross the border but are not “found”. For example, until October Venezuelan migrants crossed the border to present themselves to a US official and begin their asylum process, since then they can no longer do this because they will be sent back to Mexico, the same is now happening to Cubans, Nicaraguans and since January Haitian. This can lead them to the ancient irregular crossing. “Then this brake that we see is a temporary solution? Consistent? Or do we go back to the previous model of direct irregular crossing?” asks Guillén. For the time being, for the State Department, these measures provide “an unprecedented path for an orderly entry into the U.S. border crossing region.”
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