Hundreds of migrants arrive at the southern US Border mere days after US President Donald Trump signed a new regulation that restricts the entry of asylum seekers to the United States. Tens of thousands of Hondurans and other Central Americans have migrated north in recent years, fleeing…
Hundreds of migrants arrive at the southern US Border just days after US President Donald Trump signed a new regulation that restricts the entry of asylum seekers to the United States.
Background
Tens of thousands of Hondurans and other Central Americans have migrated north in recent years, fleeing rampant violence, poverty, political instability and even attacks from security forces. Some have occasionally chosen to move in ‘caravans’, large, semi-coordinated groups, whose size offer participants some degree of security against the many perils that lurk on the migrant trail, including muggings, extortion and human trafficking. Such caravans have been almost an annual event for years and have garnered little international attention. A migrant caravan that originated as 1500 people leaving the violent city of San Pedro Sula in Honduras has now swelled to well over 7500 people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras travelling through Mexico, some of whom were making their way to the United States.
On 30 October, US President Trump announced that he would send between 5,000-15,000 active duty troops to “harden” the southwest border with Mexico and prevent asylum seekers from entering. Officials said the troops would provide “mission enhancing capabilities” and would be armed. In the days before the midterm elections, President Donald Trump and many Republican candidates played up the migrant caravan issue, calling it an “invasion” and garnering mass support for preventing the migrants from entering the United States.
Analysis
800 migrants who broke away from the main caravan in Mexico City arrived in the border city of Tijuana on 13 November by bus. Larger groups are expected to arrive in the coming days, human rights organisations said. Migrants in the group said they were undeterred by the hostile attitude of the Trump administration and still aimed to seek asylum.
The US Defence Secretary, Jim Mattis, said he would travel to the border area on 13 November, his first visit since the military announced that over 7,000 US troops would go to the area as the caravan of mostly Hondurans has made its way through Mexico.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement that it would close lanes at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossings from Tijuana to allow the Department of Defense to install barbed wire and position barricades and fencing. Tijuana, in the Mexican state of Baja California, is at the westerly end of the border, about 17 miles (38km) from San Diego, California.
“CBP has been and will continue to prepare for the potential arrival of thousands of people migrating in a caravan heading towards the border of the United States,” Pete Flores, the agency’s director of field operations in San Diego, said in a statement, citing a “potential safety and security risk”.
Donald Trump’s administration has taken an aggressive stance against the caravan, which began its journey north on 13 November and briefly clashed with security forces in the south of Mexico early on its route.
On 9 November, Trump signed a decree that in effect suspended the granting of asylum for those who cross the border illegally, a move that could drastically slow claims at gates of entry and that experts said violated immigration laws.
The new regulation declares that people can apply for asylum at the US-Mexican border only at official ports of entry. Administration officials said the restrictions will go into effect on Saturday and will be in place for at least three months. They do not apply retroactively to people who have already crossed the border. The government regards it as an emergency measure to channel asylum seekers to ports of entry, but this comes in the face of hostile rhetoric from the president who has repeatedly described desperate Central Americans fleeing places blighted by poverty and violence to seek succour in the US as “an invasion”.
However, the Immigration and Nationality Act “says very clearly that any person can apply for asylum whether or not at a designated port of arrival”, said Tom Jawetz, vice-president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, in a statement. The Trump administration has a track record of proclaiming illegal immigration restrictions that are later thrown out in court, beginning with multiple travel bans the White House attempted to impose shortly after Trump’s inauguration. A narrow and temporary version of Trump’s travel ban was allowed to take effect.
Assessment
Our assessment that in its rush to obstruct asylum seekers, the administration is attempting to circumvent the country’s Immigration and Nationality Act. We feel that the new Trump regulations are ill-equipped to ease pressure on the allegedly overwhelmed US asylum system, but could serve the purpose of tying Trump’s political identity even more tightly to Americans’ concerns about immigrants from Central America and Mexico.
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