DULZURA, Calif. (AP) — Abigail Castillo was about to cross the U.S. border illegally when she heard President Joe Biden was suspending asylum. She went ahead anyway, walking for hours with her son through the mountains east of San Diego, hoping it wasn’t too late.
“I heard they were going to do it or about to do it,” Castillo, 35, said Wednesday as she and her son were escorted to a Border Patrol van with about 20 others from Brazil, Ecuador and her village in the region. The southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, which she says she left because it was in the grip of violence.
They had missed the deadline and were now subject to the new deportation rule.
Her sense of uncertainty prevailed among many migrants after Biden invoked presidential powers to halt asylum processing as arrests for illegal crossings top 2,500 per day. The measure went into effect Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. EDT as that threshold was met.
Two senior Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed that the first deportations under the new rule took place Wednesday, though they did not say how many were deported. The officials informed reporters on the condition that their names would not be used in accordance with regulations.
Sergio Franco, holding his baby daughter after a nearly two-month journey from Ecuador with his family, walking through the dangerous jungle of Darien on the Colombia-Panama border, said he was confident of victory in his plea to find a safe haven. refuge in the United States.
“If we have proof, there shouldn’t be a problem,” he said as he climbed into the van with Castillo and the others.
As the group was being driven out, several migrants from India walked to the same dusty area near a gun shop in the town of Dulzura, one of several that have popped up in San Diego’s remote rural suburbs in the past year for migrants to go. surrender to Border Police officers. There was no water or toilets and little shade.
Several Guatemalan women arrived later. Among them was Arelis Alonzo Lopez, who said she was almost five months pregnant and had walked for two nights. A Border Patrol agent asked how she felt.
“I can’t take it anymore,” she replied.
The shelter will remain suspended until the average number of arrests per day falls below 1,500 for a week. The last month when crossings were this low for so long was July 2020, during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Migrants who express fear for their safety if deported will be screened by U.S. asylum officials, but to a higher standard than is currently the case. If they succeed, they can continue to pursue other forms of humanitarian protection, including those enshrined in the UN Convention against Torture.
There are serious questions about whether the new measure can stop the large-scale entry of migrants. Mexico has agreed to take back migrants who are not Mexican, but only in limited numbers and with limited nationality. And the Biden administration lacks the money and diplomatic support it needs 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 freeze on asylum would push more people to compete for the 1,450 spots granted daily to enter legally through the heavily oversubscribed online app of U.S. Customs and Border Protection known as CBP One. Castro, 40, said she tried for nine months to make an appointment through the app.
“Imagine what’s going to happen with what they’ve done. The system is going to collapse again,” Castro said, speaking at a migrant camp near the banks of the Rio Grande where she has lived with about 10 others. The app sometimes became so overwhelmed that users received error messages and experienced other technical glitches.
Juan Daniel Medina of the Dominican Republic said he was determined to stay with CBP One, even after eight months of fruitless attempts to get an appointment.
“It’s the right way, because that’s how you do everything legally. They don’t have to jump the river and risk criminal prosecution,” said 30-year-old Medina.
Two hours before the sun set on San Diego on Tuesday, four busloads of migrants were dropped off at a transit center by Border Patrol agents, many of whom had to seek asylum at one of 68 immigration courts across the country. Asylum seekers are generally able to work while their claims slowly wind through overwhelmed immigration courts.
Jesus Gomez of Medellin, Colombia, said border police officers told him he was one of the last people released to seek asylum and that he should tell friends and family back home that they will be deported if they try to enter illegally to come. He said he didn’t know if it was true.
“It’s very difficult 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.
