There’s been a more than a 300 percent surge at the southwest border in the last eight months, rising from just over 17,000 apprehensions in April to 70,000 in November. This phenomenon is causing current and former immigration officials to speak out about a potential crisis at the southern border should the Biden administration follow through on its immigration proposals to virtually undo just about everything the Trump Administration has accomplished.
Former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tom Homan noted that “The numbers are going up for one reason: because of the Biden effect.”
There remain two policies in effect, Title 42 and the Remain in Mexico Policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Under Title 42 – which was enacted in response to a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a way of containing the COVID outbreak – Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are permitted to immediately return to Mexico those who cross the border illegally.
The MPP, first implemented in 2019, mandates that would-be asylees be returned to Mexico to await their asylum hearings in the U.S., where the backlog has caused a waiting period that’s nearly one year long. MPP has all but halted the notorious catch-and-release policy, which became a magnet for illegal immigration by allowing tens of thousands of asylum applicants to remain in the U.S. while they waited for their court date. Many simply disappeared into the interior of the country and were never seen again.
Officials are concerned that once the Biden administration is sworn in, it will immediately halt all of the effective enforcement measures that have enabled the U.S. to stop an enormous surge into the country.
“[If] those valves are just turned on completely, you will see a global crisis within a couple of weeks,” noted acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan.
The Biden-Harris administration is determined to implement an “America Last” immigration agenda despite having no mandate to do so. Its stated desire to unravel these two initiatives, in addition to wanting to halt deportations, issue an executive amnesty, and stop construction of the southern border wall, will likely make the fears of immigration authorities come true.