Migrants stuck in shelters on the southern border say they are worried about the prospect of Donald Trump becoming president in November, fearing a second term would make it impossible to reach the United States.
José María García Lara, director of the Juventud 2000 shelter in Tijuana, told KSWB the community thinks ‘the moment he wins the presidency, the doors will close’, citing Trump’s efforts to return migrants to countries they were trying to flee from.
‘[Biden] has helped more than 50,000 migrants who were originally rejected under Trump,’ the shelter operator said, claiming the 45th president had ‘cancelled everything’ with policies including the contentious Title 42 expulsions, which saw many migrants automatically returned during Covid.
‘Migrants are now using the CBP One app to gain appointments and a pathway to asylum in the U.S., but they worry this program will go away with him in charge.’
Migrant movement into the United States has increased since the ending of Title 42 restrictions in May 2023, with border agents warning the southern border faces catastrophe if staffing and infrastructure issues are not urgently addressed to meet demand.
This week it was reported the White House had denied multiple requests from Speaker Mike Johnson to meet with President Biden over border security, officials saying the House should take up the new national security supplemental instead of meeting to renegotiate another package.
Meanwhile, Trump has escalated strong rhetoric on the subject. At an NRA event last Friday, Trump complained about money spent on legal representation for migrants and claimed he recently saw a migrant shoplifting a refrigerator – as he admitted Senate Republicans had ‘killed’ a bipartisan border security deal offering $118bn to tighten the country’s asylum system.
Migrants remain outside the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter, waiting for a place to stay, at the Tijuana border, Baja California, Mexico, 26 September 2022
Migrants cross the border to the USA through Gate 36 to be received by elements of the Border Patrol for processing, near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on February 6, 2024
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during the NRA Presidential Forum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S., February 9, 2024
Speaker Mike Johnson has reportedly issued ‘multiple’ requests to the White House to meet over provisions for border security, but Biden maintains the House should instead take up the national security supplemental passed earlier this week.
The Senate took the bill after Republicans rejected a previous version that included funds and policy aimed at tackling the enduring border crisis.
READ MORE: The Texas town under ‘martial law’: Eagle Pass residents reveal how cops and troops are seizing their property and questioning locals as it stands at the epicenter of the migrant crisis
The revised version has taken out border provisions, issuing funds for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as provisions for the Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act.
Taking out border provisions garnered the supplemental enough support to pass the chamber, opening it up to House consideration.
Johnson maintains the package lacks ‘real border security provisions’ and has suggested the bill is unlikely to reach the floor as it stands.
‘In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters,’ he said. ‘America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.’
Senators have also raised concerns about sending ‘offensive’ munitions to Israel as criticism mounts against its devastating bombing campaign in Gaza.
Earlier this week, the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry reported 28,064 Palestinians had been killed in the conflict so far.
Third-parties have previously claimed the tally has been recorded in good faith.
Pressure is mounting on President Biden to address Israel’s actions in Gaza and to better manage the movement of migrants along the southern border.
Despite stricter asylum rules and efforts to bring ‘tougher consequences’ for migrants crossing illegally at the southern border, ports of entry have struggled to manage rising numbers.
Honduran migrant Irma Yolani Cruz (right), 31, weeps as she nears the river bank holding her daughter Ariany, one, and her 11 year old son, alongside her husband Jaimie Ariel Rapalo, 32, and their eight year old son, as migrants cross the Rio Grande river
Members of Texas National Guard sit inside the fence at Shelby Park on February 3, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas
Migrants are seen grouped together while waiting to be processed on the Ciudad Juarez side of the border on September 21, 2023 in El Paso, Texas
Crossings in Texas were temporarily suspended last year as they proved incapable of managing traffic north.
On September 18 2023, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) suspended cargo processing at the port of entry between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, directing migrants to other inlets and assuring the agency would work to ‘return normal operations as quickly as feasible’.
Four days later, the agency suspended vehicle processing at the crossing between Rio Grande and Eagle Pass, citing the need to ‘redirect personnel to assist the US Border Patrol with taking migrants into custody’.
US border authorities encountered more than 142,000 migrants in the first half of September, according to data shared by Mexico’s president.
Under Title 42, migrants were denied asylum more than 2.8m times starting in March 2020 on the grounds of preventing the spread of Covid.
Data nonetheless suggests ‘Title 42 didn’t deter migration’ – and encounters reported on the border reached new highs between 2021 and 2023.
When it expired, the Biden administration launched a new policy to deny asylum to those travelling through another country, with few exceptions.
The Asylum Ban placed new restrictions on claims by people who had crossed through another country on the way to the southern US border, unless they had previously applied and been denied asylum elsewhere – or managed to receive an appointment at a US port of entry.
‘What we have seen is that since the implementation of the Asylum Ban in May is that … people who are trying to get asylum are being forced to wait for really extended periods of time,’ Amy Fischer, Advocacy Director for the Americas at Amnesty International, told the Daily Mail late last year.
‘There are people who are waiting for months at a time. It is a bit of a lottery system.’
Rights groups called the move ‘unfeasible and impractical’ for many fleeing violence in the native country. On July 25 2023, a federal judge blocked the asylum ban, calling it ‘arbitrary and capricious’.
Human Rights First this week claimed Black asylum seekers face ‘significant discrimination and barriers’ within the US asylum system as the Asylum Ban and related restrictions ‘punish those who cross between ports of entry to seek safety’.
Ms Fischer added: ‘The Biden administration must undo the asylum ban and not force people to wait for months… so that people are not forced into the hands of traffickers because the ports of entry are becoming so impractical.’
‘When someone is trying to seek safety, the policy of deterrence … is not successful. It just causes more cruelty and more human rights violations.’
She said there was a need to spend wisely on ‘further investment to support the housing and the … social services and worker support that asylum seekers need in their first few months … to successfully [settle].
‘There are people who are waiting for months at a time. It is a bit of a lottery system,’ said Ms Fischer
Migrants in the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, 16 November 2022
Asylum-seeking migrants wait to be processed in a makeshift, mountainous campsite after crossing the border with Mexico, Friday, Feb. 2, 2024, near Jacumba Hot Springs, California
The Trump administration made overtures to working more closely with the Mexican government, offering support and aid to slow the flow of migrants across the border while clamping down on illegal drug and human trafficking operations.
Critics of the policy have observed that Mexican President López Obrador enthusiastically sent the military to Mexico’s southern border to intercept impoverished refugee families fleeing abuse in Central America.
Human Rights Watch warned that the Remain in Mexico program ‘force[d] asylum seekers to wait for their hearings in dangerous, unsanitary, makeshift camps on the Mexico side of the border, where they face kidnapping, extortion and violence at the hands of cartels and Mexican officials.’
Controversially, Trump said at a campaign rally in Durham in December that migrants were ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ – a line copied in his interview with The National Pulse in September which drew criticism from the Anti Defamation League for being ‘racist, xenophobic and despicable’.
The comments echoed the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler, according to Yale professor Jason Stanley.
‘This is very concerning talk for the safety of immigrants in the US.’