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Tag: migration
US-Mexico Border Remains Calm As New Asylum Rules Take Effect

US-Mexico Border Remains Calm As New Asylum Rules Take Effect

El Paso (United States) (AFP) - The US-Mexico border appeared calm on Friday as tough asylum rules come into force, with senior officials in Washington expressing confidence that the new system would work.

Thousands of people remained on the Mexican side of the frontier hoping to enter the United States, but the chaotic surge of migrants that right-wing politicians predicted failed to materialize.

"We are seeing people arrive at our southern border, as we expected, as we have been planning for," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday.

"We are screening and vetting them and if they do not have a basis to remain, we will remove them very swiftly."

Arrangements at the border changed at midnight, as the pandemic-era Title 42 -- a health provision that allowed for immediate expulsion -- expired.

In its place is a regularized immigration rule that threatens illegal border-crossers with five-year bans and possible criminal charges, and requires asylum-seekers to apply from outside the country.

"Our plan will take some time, but our plan will succeed," said Mayorkas.

Up to 10,000 people have tried to enter the country every day over the past week, border officials told the US media.

Many turned themselves in to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) hoping to be registered and "paroled" -- let go because authorities did not have the capacity to house them or expel them.

At the airport in El Paso on Friday, Yoenny Camacaro was hunkered down waiting for a flight to Indiana to reunite with her cousin.

The 23-year-old, who has been granted an appointment with a judge in November 2024, said she was very happy to have arrived in the United States after a long and difficult journey from Venezuela through the jungle and by train.

"It's cold, you don't eat, you can't go to the bathroom, and we depended on food being thrown at us," she told AFP.

"But that's over. Now we're here, we've done it."

In among the relief, there was also tragedy.

US officials said a teenage boy had died in the custody of Health and Human Services, which takes care of children entering the country unaccompanied.

The department gave no details, but Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said a 17-year-old boy had died in an HHS facility in Florida.

'Calm And Normal'

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the number of US-bound migrants crossing his country was ebbing.

He said around 26,500 migrants were waiting in Mexican cities along the long US frontier, and the situation was "calm and normal."

"The flux is dropping today. We have not had confrontations or situations of violence on the border," Ebrard told reporters.

Mexico's national immigration agency has ordered its offices to stop issuing documents authorizing migrants to transit through the country, officials said, in an apparent attempt to curb flows to the US border.

Edith Tapia of the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian nonprofit group, said the new policy limiting the ways in which vulnerable people could claim asylum in the United Sates left them prey to the criminal gangs that roam northern Mexico.

This "will continue to put migrants and asylum seekers at risk and (leave them) without the possibility of... protection," she told AFP in El Paso.

The border policy shift ordered by President Joe Biden has been controversial, with his supporters on the left saying new rules are too strict while opponents on the right have claimed, without evidence, that he is "opening the borders."

His new policy came under immediate legal attack.

In Florida, a federal judge agreed to a request from the state's Republican administration and ordered the border patrol to stop granting parole to border crossers and asylum seekers -- letting them remain in the United States while their cases are reviewed, a process that can take years.

And in Texas, 13 Republican-led states filed a suit declaring parole "illegal."

Parole "creates incentives for even more illegal aliens to travel to the southwest border," they said.

Washington says it is expanding legal pathways to asylum by setting up regional processing centers, bolstering guest worker programs, and granting more admissions for refugees from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and other troubled countries.

For asylum seekers, it has launched an app, CBP One, to arrange immigration interviews at the border.

While many have complained of glitches, Amadeo Diaz, 62, was in Tijuana, south of California, with his family for his asylum interview.

The family, from Arcelia in Mexico's south, said they faced kidnapping and other violence in the region where drug cartels wield great power.

"There is a lot of kidnapping, a lot of killing. Innocent people are being killed and that is why we decided to come here to ask for help," said Diaz.


Biden Seeks Action On 'Irregular' Migration And Fentanyl Smuggling In Mexico

Biden Seeks Action On 'Irregular' Migration And Fentanyl Smuggling In Mexico

Mexico City (AFP) - US President Joe Biden on Monday sought tougher action on illegal migration and drugs in talks with his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, as strains showed in the neighbors' approach to tackling the crisis.

Biden is visiting Mexico for the first time as president to meet Lopez Obrador and also hold three-way talks with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at what is dubbed the "Three Amigos" summit.

Biden said that one of his priorities was discussing "the plague of fentanyl, which has killed 100,000 Americans so far," referring to the often-deadly opioid smuggled across the border by Mexican drug cartels.

Another vital issue was "how we can tackle irregular migration, which I think we're well on our way to doing," he said at the start of the talks, calling Mexico a "true partner."

While Lopez Obrador gave Biden a warm welcome on his arrival at the presidential palace, his tone hardened at the formal talks, where the Mexican leader appealed for a change in US attitudes toward the region.

"It is time to end this oblivion, this abandonment, this disdain for Latin America and the Caribbean," Lopez Obrador said.

Biden defended Washington's record, saying it had spent "tens of billions of dollars" in the past 15 years alone that had benefited the region.

"The United States provides more foreign aid than every other country just about combined," he said.

"Unfortunately, our responsibility just doesn't end in the Western Hemisphere," Biden added.

The White House said after the meeting that the two leaders had discussed "increased cooperation to prosecute drug traffickers and dismantle criminal networks, disrupt the supply of illicit precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, shut down drug laboratories, and prevent trafficking of drugs, arms, and people across our shared border."

They also "reaffirmed their commitment to implement innovative approaches to address irregular migration... and to address the root causes of migration," a statement said.

'Where are our rights?'

On his way to Mexico, Biden made a politically charged visit to the southern US border for the first time as president.

He stopped for several hours in the border city of El Paso, Texas, meeting with US officials and inspecting a section of the tall fencing that snakes along the frontier.

"They need a lot of resources. We're going to get it for them," Biden told reporters after his visit to a customs post.

Just ahead of Biden's arrival in Mexico, a line of migrants, some with children in their arms, were deported from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez.

Venezuelan Jose David Melendez told AFP that he had been apprehended by border guards at a church where he was taking refuge.

"The police officers from the border patrol came and hit us, made us run, pointed guns at us, pointed at children with firearms. Where are our human rights?" the 25-year-old said.

On Thursday Biden announced an expansion of powers to expel people showing up at the border without clearance.

At the same time, a legal, strictly enforced pathway will be created for up to 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Asked whether the quota could be increased, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Washington wanted to see how the changes unfold, adding: "I don't think we have a fixed number in mind."

Handshakes and Hugs

Lopez Obrador and his wife Beatriz Gutierrez greeted the US president and Jill Biden at the National Palace for a welcome ceremony notable for its smiles, enthusiastic handshakes and even hugs.

The first wives delivered a joint message in English and Spanish emphasizing the two countries' shared values.

In 2021, the United States and Mexico announced a revamp of their fight against drug trafficking to address the root causes of migration, encourage economic development and bolster curbs against cross-border arms smuggling.

Mexico is plagued by cartel-related bloodshed that has seen more than 340,000 people murdered since the government deployed the military in the war on drugs in 2006.

Days before Biden's visit, Mexican security forces captured a son of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is serving a life sentence at a US prison.

Climate change and cooperation in clean energy technologies will also be on the summit agenda, with Mexico hoping to benefit from Washington's efforts to reduce its reliance on Asia-based manufacturers.


Vice President Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris And The Worsening Job Of Vice President

Kamala Harris has been vilified by critics on the right, but the people who may end up detesting her most are not conservatives or even contemporaries. They are future vice presidents, who will curse her for loading up the office with heavy burdens.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced that she will lead the administration's charge against voting rights restrictions being devised in one red state after another. The assignment reportedly came at her request, and it's easy to picture Biden pondering the idea for 0.01 seconds before offloading the issue to her.

He had already given his veep a job that might have gone unfilled if he had invited applications: figuring out the reasons and remedies for the migration crisis at the southern border. Given that large numbers of people from Latin America have been sneaking into this country for decades, there isn't much chance Harris will find a way to dry up the flow. By now, it should be clear that unauthorized migration is not a problem that can be solved but a situation that can only be managed.

If Harris wants to keep busy, it's an ideal portfolio. But it carries extensive political risks, because any policy she offers is likely to inflame conservatives who oppose immigration, legal or illegal, or liberals who favor making it easier for foreigners to come and for those already here to stay. Most likely, she'll alienate both, no matter what she does.

A campaign against GOP measures to curtail voting won't antagonize people across the board, but it's pretty much doomed. In states where Republicans wield power, governors and legislators would no more heed Harris' recommendations than they would pierce their navels.

After Georgia passed new restrictions in April, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola and Delta joined the chorus of critics denouncing them. Major League Baseball moved the All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver. Will Smith's film company, which had planned to shoot a movie in Georgia, pulled out. None of it mattered: The voting law stayed in place.

Likewise, opposition from American Airlines and Dell Technologies cq could not deter the Texas legislature, which was poised to approve a strict voting law until Democrats walked out to block action on the bill. But the bill will undoubtedly pass in the special session that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott plans to convene.

Nor does Harris stand much chance of persuading enough senators to support federal voting rights legislation, unless Democrats unite to scrap the filibuster. About the best she can hope for is to rouse enough public disgust with new voting restrictions to elect more Democrats in 2022 — a beastly challenge for the party in power in an off-year. But the more exposure she gets, the more Republicans will depict her as the terrifying reincarnation of Lady Macbeth.

All this represents a further transformation of an office that used to be the functional equivalent of a long vacation — or a long detention. Under most of our presidents, the vice president's job description was to get up each morning, check to see that the boss was alive and then pass the time with funerals, photo ops, and crossword puzzles. "You die, I fly," said George H.W. Bush when he was Ronald Reagan's spare tire.

The 19th-century Senate titan Daniel Webster declined an invitation to run for the office with the comment, "I do not propose to be buried until I am dead." Nelson Rockefeller, appointed by Gerald Ford in the aftermath of Richard Nixon's resignation, groused, "I never wanted to be vice president of anything." But Bob Dole, Ford's running mate in 1976, looked at the bright side: "It's indoor work and no heavy lifting."

It was Walter Mondale, under Jimmy Carter, who managed to acquire meaningful duties in the White House, and that role has grown with Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, and Mike Pence. Harris is on course to enlarge it further.

All this will pay off should she eventually become president, by acquainting her with the impossible responsibilities that go with the office. As Barack Obama said, when "something reaches my desk, that means it's really hard. Because if it were easy, somebody else would have made the decision, and somebody else would have solved it."

And if Vice President Harris doesn't solve the problems she's been assigned, President Harris will know just the person to give them to.

Steve Chapman blogs at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman. Follow him on Twitter @SteveChapman13 or at https://www.facebook.com/stevechapman13. To find out more about Steve Chapman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Covid-19 statistics from 2020

What Do The Stunning Statistics That Emerged From 2020 Actually Mean?

We're a statistics-happy society. We obsess over the latest numbers on just about everything — birthrates, jobs and population changes — mining them for trends.

Some stats are really obscure, such as the shocking amount of electricity Bitcoin uses. The digital currency's complex computing process devours 143 terawatt-hours a year — more than the country of Norway! Can you believe?

Anyhow, the commonly quoted stats are dribbling in, but because they are being compared to those of the wildly abnormal pandemic year of 2020, what should we do with them? The answer may be to marvel at the dramatic shifts but with asterisks attached.

Take changes in state and city populations. California reported a net loss in population last year, the first time since 1900, when the state started counting. The effects of the pandemic, says Hans Johnson of the Public Policy Institute of California, should put an asterisk on last year's shrinkage.

Two big reasons for the falloff were the large number of COVID-19 deaths and a sharp decline in international immigration. But as shots in Californian arms curb the disease and more normal immigration patterns return, the state should resume growing slowly, as it has in recent years, Johnson adds.

New York state also lost people last year. Some of it resulted from COVID lockdowns sending people out of its cities to less crowded parts of the country. As with California, however, more of it reflects a decline in foreign immigration, according to the Empire Center.

The country as a whole last year grew at its slowest pace since 1918 — by only 700,000 residents, or 0.2 percent. Some of that low count reflects deaths from COVID and a lower birthrate. The number of babies born in the U.S. hit a 4 million high in 2015 and has fallen every year since.

The pandemic may have accelerated the process. Last December, when babies conceived early in the health crisis would have been born, the U.S. birthrate posted its sharpest decline in history. Was a drop-off this severe a temporary phenomenon reflecting health and economic fears of those strange times? We will see.

Cities are reporting significant spikes in shootings. Experts have offered some pandemic-related explanations for that as well. Lost jobs, closed schools and suspended after-school activities have left vulnerable young people on the streets where violent youth gangs do their recruiting.

COVID knocked the economy on its rear, so a large jump to more normal levels of consumer spending is producing price numbers that just reflect a return to normal. Gasoline prices, for example, soared 50 percent in April compared with the same month of 2020. For perspective, though, they actually decreased 1.4 percent from March 2021.

Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal expect the economy to grow in the second quarter at an annual rate of 8.1 percent over the same time a year earlier. This would be the most torrid growth in about 40 years. Then again, consider the pathetic base we're starting at — the annus horribilis of 2020.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the number of new COVID cases — almost 350,000 a week early this month — could drop to below 10,000 by August if vaccinations continue apace. The scourge seems to be ending, and barring some other astounding turn of events, the trend lines could start becoming less dramatic.

Clearly, 2021 is turning into a whole new ballgame. Making comparisons to the sick, sick year of 2020 may offer opportunities to exclaim over the biggest year-to-year surge or drop in this or that since the nation's founding. We can have fun with that, but, hey, remember the asterisks.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.