Migrant Protection Protocols Update
On January 21st, 2021, the Biden administration announced the suspension of additional enrollments in the Trump era policy, the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Under MPP, asylum seekers who arrived at the southern border were returned to one of seven different Mexican cities to wait for their immigration proceedings.
MPP Mexican Return Cities
Shortly after, on February 11th, 2021, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a process to address the active MPP cases, which are approximately 25,000, according to the agency. DHS stated the processing would be completed in phases and is currently in phase one. The administration has released few details of what the next phase will entail.
Asylum seekers with active MPP cases were to register on the Conecta website launched by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The UNHCR, together with the U.S. government, International Organization on Migration, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and nonprofits are helping process asylum seekers at each port of entry (POE). Processing may vary by POE.
Currently, asylum seekers with active MPP cases are processed at five different POEs:
- The San Ysidro POE (Tijuana) began processing on February 19th, 2021
- The Brownsville POE/Gateway International Bridge (Matamoros) began processing on February 25th, 2021
- The Paso del Norte POE (El Paso) began processing on February 26th, 2021
- The Hidalgo POE began processing on March 22nd, 2021
- The Laredo POE (Nuevo Laredo) began processing on March 29th, 2021
DHS stated that processing at the Eagle Pass Port of Entry (Piedras Negras) would begin the week of April 19th, 2021. Any additional sites will be considered with partners in the U.S. and Mexico.
Title 42
While the administration continues to process active MPP cases, the border remains closed to most asylum seekers under a title 42 based order issued at the beginning of the pandemic.
The title 42 based order, first issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on March 20th, 2020, suspends the entry of certain people into the U.S. to prevent the spread of disease. However, the order only applies to individuals traveling from countries contiguous to the U.S. — regardless of country of origin — who would be held in congregate settings upon their arrival. The order recognizes the category is primarily individuals who attempt to enter the U.S. at a POE without valid documents or those who enter unauthorized between POEs.
The order does not apply to:
- U.S. Citizens
- Lawful Permanent Residents
- Members of the armed forces/U.S. government workers serving overseas and their spouses and children
- People who arrive at a POE with valid documents
- People in a visa waiver program
According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), individuals expelled under this order aren’t held in congregate settings. Instead, they’re expelled to their last country of transit, some are expelled to countries of origin. The majority of asylum seekers arriving are expelled, with less than half paroled into the U.S. through vulnerability screenings conducted by DHS. The Trump administration expelled an estimated 13,000 unaccompanied children under the order. In November 2020, A U.S. federal district court blocked the further expulsion of unaccompanied children.
Source: Nationwide Enforcement Encounters: Title 8 Enforcement Actions and Title 42 Expulsions, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics/title-8-and-title-42-statistics
Many expelled asylum seekers are returned to Mexican cities, facing the uncertainty of when they will be allowed to claim asylum in the U.S., a right guaranteed under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. Consequently, camps of asylum seekers waiting for the title 42 order to be lifted have emerged in the Mexican cities of Reynosa and Tijuana.
But the Mexican cities’ asylum seekers are expelled to pose a problem. The State Department declared the State of Tamaulipas — the Mexican state where Reynosa is — a do not travel zone due to crime and kidnapping. In January, Mexican authorities in Tamaulipas found the burned bodies of 19 individuals, and Guatemalan officials believe they were Guatemalan migrants attempting to reach the U.S.-Mexico border.
The government of Tamaulipas will not accept families with children under the age of seven, resulting in the expulsion of families into other Mexican states. In south Texas, hundreds of asylum seekers are placed on flights from south Texas, flown to El Paso, and then expelled in Ciudad Juarez. Asylum seekers reported that Border Patrol did not tell them where they were going when placed on the flights. Immigration advocates continue to urge the administration to allow more asylum seekers to be processed into the U.S. because they can help more.
But the Biden administration has made no indication of when title 42 will end. The administration has repeatedly stated it would be working to address the root causes of the migration. USAID announced on April 12th, 2021, that it would be increasing its efforts to address the migratory flows of Central Americans. Simultaneously, the Biden administration is using a militarized response to curb the flow of migration. The administration solidified agreements with the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Each country is deploying more troops to intercept migrants traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Refugee Ceiling
On April 16th, 2021, President Biden reported that he would maintain the 15,000 refugee ceiling for the fiscal year 2021 set by the Trump administration. Shortly after his announcement, the administration said it would be issuing a new ceiling by May 15th, 2021.
The refugee ceiling is the number of refugees accepted and resettled by the U.S. each fiscal year. Historically, the U.S. has led the world in the number of refugees resettled, having resettled more than 3 million refugees over the last 50 years.
Source: “U.S. Annual Refugee Resettlement Ceilings and Number of Refugees Admitted, 1980-Present,” Migration Policy Institute, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/us-annual-refugee-resettlement-ceilings-and-number-refugees-admitted-united
When President Obama left office, he established the refugee ceiling to 110,000. But the ceiling was slashed during the Trump administration to 15,000, the lowest ceiling ever. On February 4th, 2021, President Biden released an executive order to enhance and rebuild the refugee resettlement program and later stated his administration’s intention to increase the ceiling to 65,000 for the fiscal year 2021 and 125,000 for the fiscal year 2022. Then, on February 12th, 2021, the administration submitted a report to Congress proposing to increase the ceiling to 65,000.
The U.S. was already on track to resettle the lowest number of refugees ever, the International Rescue Committee reported. The delay in solidifying a new ceiling resulted in the canceled flights of more than 700 refugees who had cleared the extremely stringent refugee vetting process. Thousands more who also passed the vetting process are left waiting.