As of now, the administration has limited ability to expel Venezuelans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans, and it was almost entirely single men from these countries that began being placed in MPP in December. In December, the Biden administration used the Title 42 authority to dramatically increase expulsion flights to Haiti, sending thousands of adults and families with children to what has fairly been described as a “ humanitarian nightmare” without testing them for COVID-19. Haitians, though newly eligible for MPP in the Biden administration’s version, were not enrolled in it. Almost all Honduran and Guatemalan single adults and more than half of families were expelled under Title 42 either to Mexico or to their home countries in December. None of the people placed in MPP in December were Honduran or Guatemalan, the largest nationality groups put in MPP during the Trump administration. Enrollments in the new MPP started in El Paso and expanded to San Diego and Brownsville in January, such that there are now a few hundred more people enrolled, with plans to soon enroll 30 to 40 people per day in Brownsville and to start enrolling people in MPP in Laredo. The rest were processed under immigration law in different ways-about 12,000 unaccompanied children were sent to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), about 65,000 were given notices to appear in immigration court (about half of whom were sent to detention and half of whom were paroled), almost 20,000 were put in alternative to detention programs, about 6,000 were placed in expedited removal, and 267 single adults were enrolled in MPP. Of those, about 80,000 people were expelled without access to asylum, pursuant to Title 42-a misused public health statute. In December 2021, when the program began, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered about 180,000 people (though almost 45,000 were repeat crossers). It is important to put the new MPP program in context.
Legal Background and Context Sorting at the Border The result is the erosion of protection at a time when the need for it-and the reasons for forced displacement-are both growing. territory (though qualifications are vague and largely unrelated to the refugee definition) and relying on speculative assurances of support in countries to which they are sent by the United States (though there is no agreement that these countries are safe). Unmoored from asylum law, policy at the border leaves those seeking refuge hoping for exemptions that give them access to U.S. But at the border, it has relied upon Trump-era anti-asylum policies, entrenching the border as a place where the United States will continue to upend norms of refugee protection and where the right to seek asylum does not apply. Over the past year, the Biden administration has reversed some of the Trump administration’s harshest interior enforcement policies. The new MPP is indicative of a compromised approach to asylum at the border and fundamental problems with asylum adjudication in the United States. The MPP proceedings involve a tiny percentage of asylum seekers, but those subject to the program face some of the same challenges as do both asylum seekers who are expelled to other countries and those who are admitted to pursue their claims in immigration court. I came away with an impression of wasted efforts that subject asylum seekers to insecurity and hinder their ability to get the counsel they need. IntroductionĪ little less than three years ago, I watched the first immigration court proceedings for asylum seekers placed in the “Remain in Mexico” program, formally known as Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), and was disturbed by “ egregious due process and protection concerns.” In early January 2022, I watched the first immigration court proceedings under a new iteration of MPP. Schacher’s personal account and reflection on what she observed and its implications for broader asylum policy. Refugees International is pleased to share Dr. From January 3 to January 6, 2022, RI Deputy Director for the Americas and Europe, Yael Schacher, traveled to El Paso and observed immigration court proceedings for asylum seekers placed in the re-started Remain in Mexico program.
0 kommentar(er)
