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JUÁREZ/EL PASO - After four months trekking through a jungle and dodging corrupt officials, Carlos thought he was finally within reach of his destination: Houston, Texas. But the 39-year-old Venezuelan migrant arrived in Ciudad Juárez just days before President Joe Biden announced a plan to expel most border crossers.
“It came as a shock to us,” said Carlos, who is being identified by his first name because he plans to seek asylum. “Like a cold bucket of water.”
Biden announced an executive order June 4 that will bar most people from seeking asylum between ports of entry. A week after the policy went into effect, border apprehensions have slightly decreased compared to the 3,700 average daily apprehensions in May, according to advocates in El Paso who have seen Customs and Border Protection data.
But migrants, shelter directors and immigrant advocates at the border are still bracing for the full impact.
“This tends to happen anytime there's a major announcement,” said Imelda Maynard, director of legal services for Estrella del Paso. “It seems that there's always a wait and see approach on the other side before there's an increase in numbers again.”
How it works
The policy announcement last week immediately caused confusion at the border as immigrant advocates questioned how it would be carried out.
The new rule implements a ban on asylum when daily crossings hit 2,500. Border officers can then quickly deport migrants to Mexico or their home country after they cross between ports of entry. Migrants will receive a deportation order, which carries a future ban on legal entry and can expose them to prosecution for repeated crossings.
With crossings at a daily average above the threshold in recent weeks, the new rule went into effect immediately on June 5 at midnight.
The ban does not apply to migrants requesting an appointment for screening at a port of entry through the government smartphone app CBP One. However, the app’s months-long wait times and constant technical glitches have been criticized as a barrier to asylum.
The rule also includes an exemption for “operational considerations,” a nod to the fact that deporting people rapidly depends on government resources and other countries’ cooperation.
The difficulties of deporting migrants, who increasingly come from more far flung places, may explain the reason a dramatic drop was not immediately noted.
The Department of Homeland Security told reporters it has sent migrants back to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico since the policy was put in place. Mexico has already been accepting 30,000 Cuban, Venezuelan, Haitian and Nicaraguans per month, because of diplomatic and logistic complications with deportations to these countries. After the new policy was announced, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said his government is seeking an agreement with the U.S. to deport migrants to their home countries, rather than send them to Mexico.
More migrants have already been showing up at the Buen Samaritano Shelter in Juárez, according to director Juan Fierro. He expects the numbers to keep increasing.
“What’s going to happen? Since asylum is blocked, all these people who arrive at the border are going to have to find a shelter,” Fierro said.
Another shelter director who asked not to be named for security reasons said his shelter has filled up since the announcement. More migrants are sleeping on the streets.
At the Sacred Heart shelter in El Paso, director Michael DeBruhl said migrant arrivals remained steady since the executive order.
“By and large, the migrants have no idea of the political landscape,” he said.
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser called the policy change a step in the right direction to reducing irregular border crossings and encouraging migrants to use legal migration pathways, such as the CBP One app. “This is something that is only the beginning,” Leeser told a group of journalists on June 5. “But we still need to have Congress have a bipartisan agreement or we will continue to have a broken immigration process.”
Dangers of crossing
By 8 a.m. June 6 in Sunland Park, New Mexico, a major crossing point for adult men in the El Paso sector, it was nearly 80 degrees with temperatures expected to climb over 100. On the Mexican side of the wall, abandoned sneakers, plastic water bottles and scraps of clothing littered the edge of Colonia Anapra in Ciudad Juárez. A 30-foot-high wall built with a slick anticlimb design loomed tall, marking the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico. Migrants often climb it anyway, according to a CBP official.
The policy change came as El Paso is reaching record temperatures for June. Two migrants were found dead in this sector in 24 hours the second day the rule was in effect, a CBP official said.
This follows a trend of crossings becoming more dangerous. Last year was the deadliest for migrants in the El Paso sector with 148 deaths, more than double the previous year. This year is only expected to get worse as temperatures climb and migrants continue crossing in remote areas.
“We’re guessing that if volumes continue, rescues and deaths are going to increase,” a CBP official said.
On a tour with reporters on June 6, CBP officials referred specific questions about the policy implementation to the agency’s media office, which did not respond to a request for comment.
However, CBP officials emphasized that the agency always acts within the law and often serves as the first point of contact for distressed migrants, providing water and medical care.
The Biden administration said in its announcement of the policy that it “will make it easier for immigration officers to remove those without a lawful basis to remain and reduce the burden on our Border Patrol agents.”
But advocates worry making it more difficult to seek asylum will only push migrants into danger.
“Once word starts trickling out that the people being let in to be processed are then pretty much immediately removed, I think we're going to have a lot more people trying to cross in more remote areas to avoid detection,” said Maynard of Estrella del Paso.
Carlos said he will keep trying to get a CBP One appointment while he waits to see the policy impact. But he is anxious to get to the U.S. and start sending money to Venezuela for his 5-year-old daughter.
“I’m not going to lie,” Carlos said. “If they open the border, I would find a way to turn myself in.”
This story was reported through a fellowship on U.S. immigration policy in El Paso organized by Poynter with funding from the Catena Foundation.
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