The crowd of migrants gathering at the southern U.S. border has been swelling with the growing anticipation of the end of a Trump-era policy that allows the government to turn away asylum seekers.
The challenge for President Biden was underscored last week when dozens of migrants died in a fire at an immigration detention center across the border in Ciudad Juárez.
Mexican authorities say the migrants lit the fire in protest after being told they would be deported. But advocates and even former U.S. government officials say that’s far from the full story.
They argue the deadly fire should never have happened and are placing at least some of the blame on the Biden administration and its expansion of the policy, known as Title 42.
Its use forces the migrants into dangerous, overcrowded conditions in Mexico, they say.
“Exploiting a human tragedy to illustrate the ‘risks’ of irregular migration ignores the fact that the Guatemalan victims of this fire had no viable legal pathways and the Venezuelan victims were detained as a result of the Biden Admin’s expansion of Title 42,” Andrea Flores, a former member of Biden’s National Security Council who handled border policy wrote on Twitter.
The Trump-era policy gives border agents the power to turn away migrants without a legal process. It’s set to end on May 11 when the administration allows the public health emergency for COVID-19 — the basis for Title 42 — expire.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been under fire from House Republicans because of the influx of migrants at the border. Mayorkas told CBS’Â 60 Minutes Sunday that the U.S. is “in discussions with Mexico with regard to how they…
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