McAllen, Texas – Twenty-four hours after President Biden announced his new executive action on the southwest border, migrants expressed confusion and U.S. officials at the border wondered how the rule will be enforced without additional funding from Congress.
Under the new policy, every time the seven-day average of illegal border crossings exceeds 2,500, migrants entering the U.S. through legal ports of entry — with some exceptions — will be unable to seek asylum and will be deported.
Three officers involved in enforcing the measure told NBC News that there is confusion over what to do with thousands of migrants who will now be deported but whose countries will not accept them back, such as migrants from Venezuela, China and elsewhere in the East. hemisphere.
Several Department of Homeland Security officials responsible for implementing the order said on condition of anonymity that there are concerns that detention centers and migrant processing centers could quickly become overcrowded.
Since Biden’s executive action was announced, WhatsApp chat groups for migrants thinking of coming to the US have been abuzz with questions and concerns about how the policy will play out.
“What will happen to the migrants walking to the United States and those still leaving the jungle?” asked one chat group participant.
“Can anyone tell me if this is good or bad news?” said a participant in a separate chat group with a link to a news report from Telemundo. “I have planned my trip for the end of the month.”
It is currently unclear where the Biden administration will hold a large number of detained migrants — possibly tens of thousands — until they are deported. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not have the capacity or authority to detain migrants indefinitely.
Last year, for example. the US has deported an average of about 62,000 people per month. At the same time, more than double that number crosses the border illegally every month.
It is also unclear how many deportees other countries will accept. Since January 2023, Mexico has pledged to take back 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. But some months the number of nationals from those countries has exceeded 30,000.
Venezuelans in particular have crossed the border in large numbers and applied for asylum, fearing repression by the Maduro regime. It is unclear how these Venezuelans will be treated by the US in the future if Mexico does not take them back, as they cannot seek asylum and cannot be deported.
On a call with reporters on Wednesday, two senior DHS officials answered questions about how they would handle the migrants from countries that would not take them back.
One of the officials said migrants from the Eastern Hemisphere are not exempt from the new order, “but we also cannot hold individuals in custody indefinitely.”
“This is precisely why we continue to note that there are limits to what can be achieved through executive action,” the official said. “We are clear about that.”
The other senior DHS official said the agency will send resources to the border in the coming weeks. He said the new policy should reduce the time it takes to process migrants by 30 to 45 minutes, creating more room to hold migrants in custody.
“Anything we can do to reduce processing time will give us more capacity,” the official said.
The officials also said migrants will now have just four hours to find an attorney to represent them before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials, who will decide whether they meet a new, higher standard to seek protection in the United States. States.
Some migrants have already been deported since the new policy took effect at midnight Wednesday, DHS officials added.
How exactly the policy will affect the border and individual migrants will depend on how many migrants continue to arrive.
“We’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out,” one of the senior DHS officials said.
Meanwhile, some Democrats and many immigration advocacy groups have continued to criticize the executive order. The ACLU said it is still reviewing the order but plans to take legal action to stop it.
At a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said, “I am deeply disappointed in this executive order — it is a step in the wrong direction.”
Biden has said he cannot stand by and do nothing as the number of undocumented migrants crossing the southern border has reached nearly 10 million during his administration. Earlier this year, pro-Trump Republicans in Congress blocked a sweeping, bipartisan border security bill that Biden said would have eased the crisis.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
