Written by Elliot Spagat – Associated Press
Border Patrol arrested Gerardo Henao 14 hours after arresting President Joe Biden. Suspending asylum procedures at the southern border this weekBut instead of being summarily deported, agents dropped him off the next day at a bus station in San Diego, California, where he took a train to the airport where he boarded a flight to Newark, New Jersey.
Henao, who said he left his jewelry store in Medellin, Colombia, because of constant extortion, has something in his favor: the scarcity of deportation flights back to his country. A lack of resources, diplomatic restrictions, and logistical hurdles make it difficult for the Biden administration to impose its harsh measures more broadly.
[Esto es lo que debe saber sobre la medida de Biden para limitar las solicitudes de asilo]
The policy, which took effect on Wednesday, makes exceptions for “operational considerations,” official language acknowledging that the government lacks the money and authority to deport all people subject to the measure, especially if they come from countries in South America, Asia and Europe. Africa and Europe, the latter of which has recently begun to reach the borders.
In a detailed document on the matter, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) noted that “the demographics and nationalities encountered at the border significantly impact” its ability to deport people.
Thousands of immigrants have already been deported under the measure, according to Homeland Security officials who provided information to reporters Friday on the condition of anonymity. There were 17 deportation flights, including one to Uzbekistan. Among the deportees are people from Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru and Mexico.
Henao, 59, said a Border Patrol agent told him about it after he picked him up Friday on a dirt road near a power line in the Rocky Mountains east of San Diego. The officer processed his release documents and asked him to appear in immigration court on October 23 in New Jersey. He casually asked Henao why he fled Colombia, but did not question him.
“There was nothing,” Henao said at a transit center in San Diego, where, within four hours on Tuesday, the Border Patrol dropped off migrants on four buses. “They took my picture, took my fingerprints, and that was it.”
Many of the migrants released that day were from China, India, Colombia and Ecuador. One group included men from Mauritania, Sudan and Ethiopia.
“Hey, if you’re arriving now, you’ve been released from immigration detention and can go to the airport,” a volunteer said over a loudspeaker to the migrants, directing them to the train platform on the other side of the parking lot. “They can do it for free, if they don’t have the money to buy a taxi or an Uber.”
Under the measure, asylum claims are suspended after the number of people crossing the southern border illegally reaches 2,500 per day, and end when there are fewer than 1,500 people on average for an entire week.
Border officers have been instructed to give top priority to detaining migrants who can be easily deported, followed by “hard to expel” nationalities, which require at least five days to issue travel documents, and “extremely difficult to expel” nationalities. whose governments do not accept American flights.
Instructions are written in note To border agents, as reported by the New York Post. The Associated Press news agency confirmed its contents with an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the document had not been made public.
DHS is aware of the obstacles, said Teresa Cardinal Brown, senior immigration adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Think tank in Washington.
“There are limitations on the resources available to the government to detain and deport people, especially in countries where we have difficulty deporting people because (the other) government is not cooperating,” Brown said. “We cannot detain them indefinitely.”
Between January and May, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted 679 deportation flights, nearly 60% of which were to Guatemala and Honduras, according to Witness at the Border, an activist group that analyzes data from the flights. There were also 46 to Colombia, 42 to Ecuador, and 12 to Peru, a relatively small number considering that tens of thousands of people from those countries enter irregularly every month.
During that period, there were ten deportation flights to Africa, which has become a major source of immigration to the United States, and only one trip to China, despite the detention of nearly 13,000 Chinese immigrants.
[La acción ejecutiva de Biden cerrará de inmediato la frontera a solicitantes de asilo y puede demorar meses o años en reabrirla]
Mexico is the easiest country to expel because you only have to drive to the nearest border point, but in the last fiscal year, fewer than three in ten of those arrested at the border were Mexican, compared to nine in ten in 2010.
Mexico also receives up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, countries that have limited capacity or desire to welcome their citizens back.
Some states refuse to accept flights to avoid fatigue, too, Corey Price, in a 2023 interview when he was director of enforcement and removal operations for ICE, said.
“We didn’t decide unilaterally: OK, we’ll bring your citizen back.” “No, that country has to agree to take them back,” said Price, who retired in May.
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