Title 42: Biden administration holds briefing on border situation – live

In an example of how the Biden administration is moving to speed up the deportation process, the Los Angeles Times reports that the government slashed the amount of time asylum-seekers have to find an attorney before being interviewed by immigration officials.

The cut to 24 hours from 48 hours is similar to a policy adopted under Donald Trump that was blocked by federal courts, and could lead to more migrants failing their first interview with officials and being deported.

Here’s more from their story:

Biden’s version of the policy, outlined in an email sent to asylum officers Wednesday and obtained by The Times, gives asylum seekers at least 24 hours to find and consult an attorney once they receive information on the process. Before the change, migrants had at least 48 hours from their arrival at a Department of Homeland Security facility to find a lawyer.

The move could allow officers to more rapidly remove migrants who do not pass their first screening, known as a “credible fear” interview.

Title 42, a decades-old policy invoked during the COVID-19 pandemic to allow border agents to quickly turn back migrants, expired just before midnight on Thursday, and officials were expecting a spike in migrants trying to cross the border. Complicating matters, just hours before Title 42’s expiration, a federal judge in Florida blocked the Biden administration from quickly releasing migrants from Border Patrol custody without court notices.

Border agents already apprehended more than 10,000 migrants in a single day Tuesday, according to internal data obtained by The Times. By Wednesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection had more than 28,000 migrants in custody, significantly more than its facilities are rated to hold, the data showed.

“In support of the Department’s goal to more quickly provide relief to those who are eligible while more quickly removing those who are not, effective immediately the minimum time between the noncitizen’s acknowledgment of receipt of the Form M-444, Information about credible fear Interview, and the credible fear interview will be 24 hours,” a lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official on asylum wrote in the email announcing the change.

The Biden administration continues to press on with plans to deport many of those who have crossed the border since Title 42 ended, top homeland security official Blas Nuñez-Neto said.

“There is a right way, a safe way and the wrong way, an unlawful way, to enter the United States. Those who arrive at the border without using a lawful pathway are presumed ineligible for asylum as part of the new rule that was issued yesterday,” Nuñez-Neto said.

“We are humanely processing non-citizens, placing them into removal proceedings and returning those without a legal basis to remain in the US. And people who do not use available pathways to enter the US now face tougher consequences including a five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution.”

He said the Biden administration has “led the largest expansion of lawful pathways for migrants to come to the US directly in decades”, and urged people to “ignore the lies of smugglers and not put their lives in danger”.

A Florida judge’s ruling that stymies efforts to quickly release migrants from Border Patrol custody is “harmful” to efforts to control migration flows, a top homeland security official said.

“We are concerned about the impact litigation will have on our ability to execute this plan. This includes the harmful ruling from a Florida court last evening which will result in unsafe overcrowding at (Customs and Border Protection) facilities and undercut our ability to efficiently process and remove migrants, which will risk creating dangerous conditions for Border Patrol agents as well as non-citizens in our custody. Republican and Democratic administrations alike have used this parole authority to protect the safety and security of migrants in the workforce,” said Blas Nuñez-Neto, the homeland security department’s assistant secretary for border and immigration policy, in an ongoing briefing with reporters.

He continued by criticizing Congress for failing to reform the US immigration system:

We will comply with the court order and we are also assessing our next steps but taking a step back, the lawsuits we are facing, frankly, from both sides of the aisle really clearly demonstrate just how fundamentally broken our immigration system is. We have for the better part of two decades now experienced these surges in migration under presidents of both parties. We are committed to working innovatively within our statutory authorities to deal with this challenge, but we are clear-eyed that without bipartisan congressional action, we will continue to face these challenges on our border, and we invite Republicans and Democrats on the Hill to come together and work with us to once and for all address the underlying issues in our immigration system that are pulling so many migrants to the border.

No ‘substantial increase’ in migrant arrivals: DHS

Biden administration holds briefing on border situation

Here’s the latest from the Guardian’s Marisol Chávez in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, who reports migrants in the border city were struggling to react to the new reality created by Title 42’s end:

“My plan is to give up,” Fernando Jesús Manzano, 32, from Estado Falcón, Venezuela, said dejectedly as he gazed at the hundreds of fellow migrants waiting to turn themselves in to US migration authorities as Thursday turned into Friday and a new policy era at the US-Mexico border.

Manzano arrived at “Door 42”, a gate along the border barrier in El Paso, west Texas, shortly before the expiration of Title 42, a Trump-era rule implemented during the coronavirus pandemic that allowed the US to turn away migrants at its border with Mexico without allowing them to exercise their right to seek asylum.

The man was too late. US Customs and Border Protection, as well as Texas national guard soldiers, had already set up concertina wire and were heavily patrolling the area where Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, meets its twin city across the border, El Paso, by the time he arrived.

In an interview with CNN, Oscar Leeser, the mayor of El Paso, Texas, said the city hasn’t yet seen the surge in migrants some feared once Title 42 ended:

Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made the rounds of the morning shows this morning, where he repeated his message that the US government is ready to swiftly deport migrants who cross the border.

Here he is on MSNBC:

The end of Title 42 poses a test for Joe Biden, whose poll numbers when it comes to handling immigration are low, and who has been repeatedly accused by Republicans of not taking the issue seriously. The president has said little about the end of the pandemic-era immigration rule, instead sending Mayorkas to warn migrants against trying to enter the US without authorization.

Lawmakers in Congress representing New York City – including the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and the House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries – are calling on the Biden administration to allow newly arrived asylum seekers to work.

Under current rules, asylum seekers allowed into the United States must wait 150 days before applying for an authorization to work. In a letter to Joe Biden, the lawmakers say that should be reduced, arguing it would help communities and held address the ongoing labor shortage in the US economy:

Despite the best efforts for thousands of communities and organizations across the country, ultimately, asylum-seekers face unreasonable barriers to work that must be mitigated. Without work, many are forced to seek services from government and non-government groups, straining resources in a completely preventable manner. We strongly encourage your administration to expand the issuance of parole to asylum seekers so they may immediately apply for employment authorization and eliminate the 150-day employment authorization application waiting period for asylum seekers who have submitted their asylum applications.

Reporters from the Dallas Morning News were on the Mexican border overnight, and reported there wasn’t much reaction at one border crossing as Title 42 ran out:

The Guardian’s Marisol Chávez is in Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican city just across the border from El Paso. Here’s what she saw when Title 42 ended at midnight:

The first moments of the end of Title 42 in Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican twin city to El Paso, were met with initial silence.

It was almost as if nothing had changed for the 500 migrants hoping turn themselves in to US authorities outside Door 42 between Juarez and El Paso, a gate in the tall border barrier.

The group had been waiting since late afternoon, surrounded by Texas national guard and Border Patrol agents, and entrapped by barbed wire.

Throughout the afternoon and into the night, small groups were slowly allowed into the country, while the rest stood by.

The hot afternoon grew colder as soon as the sun set. With no belongings, many struggled to keep warm. Their only option: dust-filled blankets, jackets and sweaters that migration authorities provided from a dumpster.

In the dark of the night, cell phones were alight as migrants attempted to book one of the few asylum appointments available online through an app administered by US federal authorities, called CBP One.