The Biden administration’s asylum halt that has led to a 40% drop in arrests for illegal border crossings this month falls hardest on nationalities most susceptible to being deported
Ana Ruiz was dismayed seeing migrants from some countries released in the United States with orders to appear in immigration court while she and other Mexicans were deported on a one-hour bus ride to the nearest border crossing.
“They’re giving priority to other countries,” Ruiz, 35, after a tearful phone call to family in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas at the San Juan Bosco migrant shelter. The shelter’s director says it is receiving about 100 deportees a day, more than double what it saw before President Joe Biden issued an executive order that suspends asylum processing at the U.S.-Mexico border when arrests for illegal crossings reach 2,500 a day.
The asylum halt, which took effect June 5 and has led to a 40% decline in arrests for illegal crossings, applies to all nationalities. But it falls hardest on those most susceptible to deportation — specifically, Mexicans and others Mexico agrees to take (Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans). Lack of money for charter flights, sour diplomatic ties and other operational challenges make it more difficult to deport people to many countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the U.S. is working with countries around the world to accept more of their deported citizens, citing challenges from diplomatic relations to speed producing travel documents.
“The reality is that it is easier to remove individuals to certain countries than other countries,” he said in an interview Wednesday in Tucson, Arizona. “We do remove individuals to Senegal, we do remove individuals to Colombia, we do remove individuals to India. It can be more difficult.”
Mexicans accounted for 38% of border arrests in May, down from 85% in 2011 but still the highest nationality by far. The Border Patrol’s Tucson sector has been the busiest corridor for illegal crossings for much of the last year.
