By Alberto Pradilla | Washington Post Opinion
December 7, 2021 at 10:16 pm. EST
Alberto Pradilla is a reporter on the site 'Animal Político' and author of the book 'Caravan: how the Central American exodus came out of hiding'.
With the reactivation of the immigration program "Stay in Mexico", Joe Biden's US government recovers one of the cruelest anti-immigrant policies of its predecessor, Donald Trump. From Monday, December 6, asylum seekers arriving at the southern border of the United States are returned to dangerous cities on the Mexican border, where they must wait for their appointment with a judge while they are exposed to kidnappings and extortion. There is hardly any clarity about the process, but it seems that it will begin in Ciudad Juárez and then extend to Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.Receive news and opinion columns in Spanish in our newsletter
To resume this plan, the US president had the approval of his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who became the most effective agent of the Border Patrol. For the first time, both governments acknowledged having negotiated the implementation of the program, although what was subsequently made public was a White House memorandum and not an agreement between countries. It includes points that would seek to alleviate the risks of expelled people, such as the maximum limit of 180 days to stay in Mexico. However, it is impossible to humanize a policy that will have a serious impact on the safety of asylum seekers and their right to due process. Since Monday, the border has been a more hostile and dangerous place for vulnerable families fleeing violence and misery in their countries.ADVERTISING
Less than a year after suspending "Stay in Mexico" (also called "Protocol for the Protection of Migrants" or MPP), Biden was forced to resume the program by mandate of the Supreme Court. This is an advantage for him: he can hide behind the complaints of activists about human rights violations in that resolution, and he can benefit from the new restrictions to stop the arrival of migrants. The new expelled by the MPP will join those who are returned through Title 42, the decree with which Trump legalized express expulsion with the excuse of COVID-19.
The step back shows that, despite Biden's promises, Trump and anti-immigrants in the United States continue to count on powerful allies in the different powers to perpetuate their xenophobic policies. Unfortunately, Mexico continues to be an accomplice in all this. The court order that forced the resumption of the program made it clear that an agreement was essential. AMLO could refuse, but decided to turn his back again on vulnerable families seeking protection.
Currently, most Central American migrants were already being delivered to Mexico in the format of hot returns. Biden even perfected this system and began sending them by plane directly to states such as Tabasco or Chiapas, where the National Migration Institute (INM) collects them and expels them to Guatemala or Honduras. In this way, the main victims of the new "Stay in Mexico" will be Venezuelan, Cuban and Haitian asylum seekers, who also flee poverty, repression and violence.
The Biden administration has recognized that the MPP had "unjustified human costs" and presented a new memorandum to end this program. But the process to definitively conclude this expulsion policy could take several months. Meanwhile, the Democratic government will have all the legal mechanisms to close the border designed by Trump, the Republican who used xenophobia to come to power.
In the case of Mexico, the reactivation of the MPP comes in a context of chaos at the borders and new strategies to prevent the transit of poor families to the United States. Unfortunately, the Mexican administration does not abandon its policy of cynicism: by making public that it will receive expelled asylum seekers, the head of the Foreign Ministry's North American Unit, Roberto Velasco, tried to sell the idea that it is a decision motivated by "humanitarian reasons."
This new focus in the north adds to the humanitarian crisis suffered by the southern border. Until now, the INM's strategy was to concentrate migrants in Tapachula, Chiapas, a municipality next to the border with Guatemala converted into a prison city. For months, human rights organizations warned that it was a pressure cooker. In August, migrants who tried to break the siege of the National Guard were stopped with sticks. AMLO himself said it was "to take care of them." It was until the departure of several migrant caravans from that point that the Mexican government changed its strategy.
Since October, with the situation completely overwhelmed, the uniformed personnel abandoned the coups and now resort to exhaustion as a weapon of deterrence. There are two strategies. The first tries to distribute them to different states of the country and give them documentation that supposedly regularizes them for a year, but prevents them from moving north. Some reported having been abandoned by immigration agents in dangerous cities such as Acapulco, with a strong presence of organized crime.
The other is that, as the caravan passes, the National Guard cuts the road and prevents the transit of trucks, forcing migrants to walk for hours in the sun. In addition, the INM disseminated several statements accusing them of carrying diseases such as dengue and COVID-19, in an exercise of stigmatization from institutions.
Not being beaten is certainly an advantage, although trying to subdue families by exhausting them and pointing them out publicly does not say much about the "humanism" of which the AMLO government speaks.
Chaos at the borders is a symbol of the failure of containment policies. Recovering strategies from the past will only serve to add more suffering. Both governments presented investment plans in Central America to stop migration, ignoring that whoever fears for their lives does not solve their situation with economic aid. This is a shared responsibility. Biden must guarantee the right to asylum and dismantle, once and for all, Trump's anti-immigrant inheritance. AMLO could have become an ally of the most vulnerable but chose to follow the orders of the powerful. If asylum seekers suffer again the horror they have suffered in recent years, we will have to remind him that he was able to avoid it.
