The Biden administration is giving another shot to roughly 34,000 asylum seekers rejected under President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Registration began Wednesday for those who had their cases dismissed or denied for failing to appear in court.
It is unclear how many people will be eligible to be released into the United States pending a decision on their cases. But Michele Klein Solomon, the International Organization for Migration’s director for North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, told the Associated Press that she expected at least 10,000 people. Her organization is working closely with the Biden administration to bring people to the border and ensure they test negative for COVID-19 before being allowed into the country.
Solomon’s estimate seems low. Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse said the move could benefit 34,528 migrants — 27,842 who were denied for failing to appear in court and 6,686 whose cases were dismissed.
Many are believed to have left the Mexican border region, thinking their cases were finished.
President Joe Biden halted Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy his first day in office and soon allowed an estimated 26,000 asylum-seekers with active cases to return to the United States while their cases play out, a process that can take years in a court system backlogged with more than 1.3 million cases.
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More than 12,300 people with active cases have been admitted to the U.S. since February, while others who have registered but not yet entered the country bring the count to about 17,000.
That still leaves out tens of thousands of asylum-seekers whose claims were denied or dismissed under “Migrant Protection Protocols.”
About 70,000 asylum-seekers were returned to Mexico under the policy introduced in San Diego in January 2019 and expanded across the border after President Trump threatened Mexico with higher tariffs if it didn’t do more to reverse a major spike in border crossings.
Earlier this month, Biden ended the policy requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases were heard. This move raised concerns that more migrants will make the dangerous journey to try to enter the U.S. at its southern border.
Eleanor Acer, Human Rights First’s senior director of refugee protection, called it a “welcome step” that would provide access to asylum to people who missed hearings due to kidnappings and other dangers.
Chad Wolf, an acting Homeland Security secretary who oversaw the Trump-era policy, said giving asylum-seekers another chance after they lost their cases was “absurd.”
“This administration simply refuses to put the American people first when formulating their immigration policy. This is just more evidence,” said Wolf, now a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
In May, 180,000 migrants made illegal crossings into the U.S. – a 20-year high. A pandemic-related ban on seeking asylum also encouraged repeat attempts to cross because getting caught carried no legal consequences.
As CBN News has reported, violent criminals are among the thousands of migrants illegally crossing into the U.S. every day. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol announced on Tuesday that its agents captured two sex offenders as they were attempting to enter the U.S. illegally near Laredo, Texas.
One man was identified as Isidro Efrain Gallardo-Rangel, a registered sex offender with an extensive criminal history and a conviction for Indecency with a Child – Felony 2nd Degree in 2018 in Dallas, Texas. The other man, Oscar Murretla-Gonzalez, was convicted in Salinas, California for Lewd or Lascivious Acts with a child under 14 years of age and sentenced to one-year incarceration and three years to serve on probation.
Both men are Mexican nationals and were attempting to enter the country with two different groups of undocumented migrants.
“These arrests continue to highlight the dangers that illegal immigration pose to our country,” the Border Patrol said in a press release. “Laredo Sector agents continue to arrest undocumented individuals who have been previously convicted for sexual misconduct. Dangerous criminals such as these endanger our communities and shows a lack of regard for our country’s laws.”
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