Migrants left shaken and unsure as deportations begin under new rule suspending asylum

DULZURA, California – Abigail Castillo was about to illegally cross the US border when she heard President Joe Biden was suspending asylum. She continued anyway, walking for hours through the mountains east of San Diego with her young son, hoping it wasn’t too late.

“I heard they were going to do this or were about to do this,” Castillo, 35, said Wednesday as she and her son were escorted to a Border Patrol van with about two dozen other people from Brazil. , Ecuador and her village in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, which she said she left because it was overcome by violence.

They had missed the deadline and were now subject to the new deportation rule.

Their feeling of uncertainty prevailed among many migrants after Biden invoked presidential powers halt asylum processing when arrests for illegal crossings exceed 2,500 per day. The measure took effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. because this limit has been reached.

Two senior Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed that the first deportations under the new rule took place on Wednesday, although they did not say how many were deported. Authorities briefed reporters on the condition that their names not be released in accordance with regulations.

Sergio Franco, who hugged his daughter after a nearly two-month trip from Ecuador with his family, trekking through the dangerous Darién jungle on the border between Colombia and Panama, said he is confident he will win his appeal to find a safe place . refuge in the United States.

“If we have proof, there should be no problem,” he said as he got into the van with Castillo and the others.

As the group was driven away, several migrants from India walked to the same dusty area near a gun shop in the town of Dulzura, one of several that have sprung up over the past year on San Diego’s remote rural outskirts so migrants could surrender. to Border Patrol agents. There was no water or bathrooms and little shade.

Several Guatemalan women arrived later. Among them was Arelis Alonzo Lopez, who said she was nearly five months pregnant and had been walking for two nights. A Border Patrol agent asked her how she felt.

“I can’t take it anymore,” she replied.

Asylum remains suspended until the daily average number of detentions drops below 1,500 for a consecutive week. The last month that crossings were this low for this long was July 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Migrants who express fear for their safety if deported will be screened by U.S. asylum officers, but under a higher standard than is currently in place. If approved, they may continue to seek other forms of humanitarian protection, including those set out in the United Nations Convention against Torture.

There are serious questions about whether the new measure can prevent large-scale entry of migrants. Mexico has agreed to take back non-Mexican migrants, but only in limited numbers and nationalities. And the Biden administration lacks the money and diplomatic support needed to deport migrants long distances, including to Ecuador and India.

In Matamoros, Mexico, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, Esmeralda Castro of El Salvador worried that the suspension of asylum would lead to more people competing for the 1,450 slots granted daily to enter legally through the online application. of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, known as CBP Um. Castro, 40, said he has been trying to make an appointment through the app for nine months.

“Imagine what will happen to what they did. The system will collapse again,” Castro said, speaking at a migrant camp near the banks of the Rio Grande, where he lives with about 10 other people. The app got so overwhelmed Sometimes users received error messages and faced other technical glitches.

Juan Daniel Medina of the Dominican Republic said he was determined to continue with CBP One, even after eight months of unsuccessful attempts to secure an appointment.

“It’s the correct way because that way you do everything legally. They won’t have to jump the river and risk facing criminal charges,” said Medina, 30.

Two hours before sunset Tuesday in San Diego, four busloads of migrants were dropped off by Border Patrol agents at a transit center, many of them to seek asylum at one of 68 immigration courts across the country. . Asylum seekers can generally work while their claims progress slowly overwhelmed immigration courts.

Jesus Gomez of Medellín, Colombia, said Border Patrol agents told him he was one of the last people to be released to seek asylum and that he should tell friends and family back home that they would be deported if they tried to enter illegally. He said he didn’t know if it was true.

“It’s a very difficult thing to navigate,” said Gomez, 49, as he waited for his wife to be released by Border Patrol before they flew to Boston, where their daughter lives.

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Gonzalez reported from Matamoros, Mexico.