US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the number of people crossing into the US over the southern border had halved in recent days despite expectations of a surge following the expiry of Covid-19 restrictions.
A rule known as Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allowed US border agents to quickly send migrants back to Mexico instead of processing their asylum cases, expired on Thursday at midnight. Republicans who support the continuation of the policy have warned that asylum seekers would surge across the border in response.
Earlier in the week, the number of border “encounters” reported by US authorities rose to around 10,000 per day as people attempted to enter the US.
Speaking on CNN, Mayorkas said it was “too early” to know if the number of migrants crossing at the southern border had peaked. But he said that border authorities were experiencing “a 50 per cent drop in the number of encounters, versus what we were experiencing earlier in the week before Title 42 ended at midnight on Thursday”.
Border patrol reported 6,300 border encounters on Friday and 4,200 on Saturday, Mayorkas said.
Speaking on ABC News, Mayorkas suggested that the drop in numbers was because of new rules requiring asylum seekers to first seek relief in other countries they travel through on the way to the US.
Anyone crossing into the US without “accessing the lawful pathways we’ve made available” or seeking asylum in one of the countries they had travelled through would face a higher threshold to gain asylum in the US, he said.
“We have communicated very clearly a vitally important message to the individuals who are thinking of arriving at our southern border: there is a lawful, safe and orderly way to arrive in the United States,” Mayorkas said on CNN.
“That is through the pathways that President Biden has expanded in an unprecedented way.”
He added: “There’s a consequence if one does not use those lawful pathways, and that consequence is removal from the United States, a deportation and encountering a five-year ban on re-entry and possible criminal prosecution.”
The border issue has become a political liability for Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Migration across the Americas has hit record numbers as countries in the region experience political and economic crises. In the past six months, Mexico’s authorities have recorded migrants from more than 100 countries, some of whom are hoping to cross the border into the US.
Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House foreign affairs committee, said there were still “caravans” of migrants coming into the US.
“The fact is the last two and a half years speak for themselves,” said McCaul. “We’ve had five million people enter this country illegally . . . It’s unsustainable.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a court challenge against the new asylum rules, which it said mimic those issued by former president Donald Trump and later struck down in court.
Earlier this week, Katrina Eiland, an attorney with ACLU, said the Biden administration’s new rule would place asylum seekers in “grave danger” and violated US laws.
“We’ve been down this road before with Trump,” she said.
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