A week after President Joe Biden signed an executive action to “suspend the entry” of immigrants crossing the border illegally, the number of migrants has fallen by 25%, but authorities continue to release some who cross the border illegally into the U.S. , several Department of Homeland Security officials said.
In some areas, border agents are pushing Central American migrants back to Mexico rather than deporting them to their home countries, as the executive action detailed, according to immigration advocates and an internal memo. seen by NBC News.
The memo was first reported by the New York Post.
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A senior DHS official said early numbers indicate the executive action has deterred some migrants from crossing the southern border. Illegal crossings dropped from 4,000 per day last week to 3,000 per day on Tuesday, according to Customs and Border Protection data obtained by NBC News. Biden’s executive action limiting which migrants can apply for asylum took effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, June 5.
But while the action prevents migrants from seeking asylum if they crossed the border illegally, the administration continues to release illegal migrants inside the U.S. to live while they pursue asylum claims in immigration court, the DHS official said.
The senior DHS official said some migrants who crossed illegally since last Wednesday and were released into the U.S. could be found ineligible for asylum hearings and sent home for violating the executive action.
And although the lawsuit states that the U.S. would deport anyone deemed ineligible for asylum back to their home countries, immigration advocates say that in some sections of the border, migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are being sent back. to Mexico.
The senior DHS official said that without money from Congress for more detention space and deportation flights, the Border Patrol will continue to be forced to release some who illegally cross the border into the U.S., especially those from countries that Mexico is reluctant to do. in accepting.
But the official said those releases, which were occurring before the executive action, have dropped by more than half since it took effect.
In San Diego, where the number of migrants from China and other parts of the Eastern Hemisphere has soared this year, the memo states that Border Patrol agents are instructed to send migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador , Honduras, or Mexico back to Mexico, but to release migrants from the Eastern Hemisphere and any other countries within the U.S.
A temporary drop?
The senior DHS official said it is still too early to judge the effectiveness of Biden’s new policy.
A Border Patrol union representative expects the decline in illegal border crossings after the executive action takes effect will be short-lived.
“We see these declines in crossings every time there is a new policy, but these smugglers quickly change their strategies and their businesses, and human and human smuggling will continue,” said Hector Garza, vice president of the National Patrol Council. Border Patrol agents’ union and a 24-year Border Patrol veteran who lives in Laredo, Texas.
Garza said the executive action introduced no real change and described the situation at the border as “status quo.”
The new policy could also soon be blocked in court. In a court filing in Washington on Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit with several immigration organizations against the Biden administration, seeking to end the executive action.
The case’s lead attorney, Lee Gelernt, said Biden’s policy is “almost identical” to the one enacted by Trump and that the ACLU was able to block it.
“We are filing this lawsuit because this ban is manifestly illegal. The Trump administration enacted a nearly identical asylum ban. We sue for that. We won. We hope to win again,” Gelernt said.
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