The Biden administration provoked a migration crisis on the southern border

The United States is now at the peak of another migration crisis on the border with Mexico. This was reported by The Washington Post (WP) on May 12. According to her, the number of migrants illegally crossing the border this week reached 10,000 people a day – a record on record. However, there were a lot of illegal immigrants before. Fox News, citing sources in the US border service, said that as of February 2023, more than 1 million migrants were trying to cross the border. For comparison, for the whole of 2022, this number was 2.4 million people, for 2021 – 1.7 million people.

The excitement at the border is caused by the abolition of a number of Trump’s immigration laws. On the night of May 11-12, the so-called paragraph 42 was canceled – a severe restriction on entry into the United States, introduced under the Trump presidency under the pretext of combating the coronavirus pandemic. Under these regulations, the US government was empowered to “prohibit, in whole or in part, the entry of persons and property” to prevent the spread of infection.

The application of Section 42 in practice meant mass deportations of migrants taken into custody by US border guards. At the same time, migrants were deprived of the right to write an application for asylum. Thus, the government was able to quickly expel migrants from the United States, including those who, under the law, could apply for asylum and, as a result, remain in the country.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has estimated that 2.4 million migrants have been expelled from the U.S. since March 2020, pursuant to the paragraph, 2 million of which were during the Biden presidency. It is noteworthy that their deportation was carried out outside the framework of US immigration law and was not deportation in the full sense, since it did not carry sanctions like a long-term ban on entry into the country.

At first, Biden did not object to paragraph 42 and even extended it. Subsequently, the Democratic administration tried to repeal paragraph 42, but ran into resistance from the Republicans. For example, the White House planned to end the law in the spring of 2022, but a coalition of Republican-led states convinced the Supreme Court to block this initiative. At the same time, Biden modified the operation of paragraph 42 and abandoned the practice adopted under Trump to use it to expel children without parents. In general, under Biden, the number of migrant families who were allowed into the United States increased. If the Trump administration expelled 69% of families, then the Biden administration only 20%.

The Biden administration replaced the repealed paragraph 42 with a new rule, which has already drawn criticism from human rights activists. According to the text of the document published in the Federal Register, migrants are deprived of the right to apply for asylum in the United States if they did not try to find it in other countries or if they did not take the opportunity to legally cross the American border. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the ability to apply for asylum, which paragraph 42 did not provide, should encourage migrants to enter the US legally and not resort to the services of smugglers. And yet, human rights activists from the American Civil Liberties Union have already filed a lawsuit against the new rules on immigration, saying that they violate US laws and international agreements. In their opinion, the measures introduced by Biden are essentially not much different from Trump’s paragraph 42.

In favor of the new regulations, the US Department of Homeland Security spoke out – the official representative of the department, Marsha Espinoza, said that the law “encourages migrants to look for legal ways” and not to cross the border illegally.

CBS reports that the new measures will primarily affect people from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua – countries whose citizens are required to seek asylum in Mexico, and not in the United States.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed an even tougher immigration bill on May 11. It imposes strict limits on the number of asylum seekers and also requires migrants to complete such applications outside the United States. In addition, the Republicans demand to resume the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico and expand the powers of the security forces. According to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, the gist of the bill is as follows: “If you come to our country, you are legally filing an asylum application, but you will be detained or expelled (from the territory of the United States – Vedomosti) until your application will not be considered.” It was difficult to pass the bill – 219 congressmen voted for it, 213 voted against, including all Democrats and one Republican. Biden’s associates have severely criticized the Republican initiative – according to Congressman Gerald Nadler, who leads the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, the bill returns the United States to Trump’s “unsuccessful, illegal and immoral policies.”

Biden’s policy on migration issues is full of double standards, said Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute for the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In words, paragraph 42 does indeed require migrants to be sent back to Mexico, but in reality, Democrats, under the pretext of providing social assistance, allowed those who entered the United States to remain in its territory. Under the influence of accusations of unwillingness to solve migration issues, the administration took a cunning step. On the one hand, Vasiliev continues, they are repealing paragraph 42 and distancing themselves from Trump’s policies, on the other hand, they are beginning to regulate the migration flow more carefully. Democrats are interested in the arrival of migrants, as they will form their electoral base in the future. According to the expert, the entire severity of the law is implemented by the administration only in relation to immigrants from Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela, it is much easier for the rest to get to the United States. The possibilities of the Republicans to prevent the Democrats and tighten the migration policy are very limited – their bill will definitely fail in the Senate and will not be implemented, Vasiliev concludes.

The peak of the crisis was caused by the actions of the Biden administration, for which migrants are indeed the main electoral base, says Lev Sokolshchik, a researcher at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Biden’s policy aimed at softening immigration laws and legalizing migrants, and subsequently canceling Trump’s decrees, led to an increase in migration flows and an aggravation of the situation at the border. Democrats, the expert adds, admit that they failed to stop the problem, but due to political expediency, they are not very worried about the influx of migrants. The situation looks much more serious for the Republicans, whose electoral base – white Protestants of Anglo-Saxon origin – is gradually decreasing. That is why, concludes Sokolshchik, one should expect fierce battles between Democrats and Republicans on the migration issue in the pre-election period.