RPT - Rights Group Says Biden Must Stop Expulsion, Build Infrastructure For Asylum Seekers

EL PASO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th August, 2021) The Biden administration must immediately start developing infrastructure to accommodate the arrival of asylum-seeking migrants at the US southern border instead of turning them away under a coronavirus-related public healthy policy, Hope Border Institute Deputy Director Marisa Garza told Sputnik.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday extended the Trump-era policy, known as Title 42, which authorizes immigration enforcement to immediately turn away undocumented migrants on the United States' borders as part of an effort to control the spread of the novel coronavirus.

"The Hope Border Institute retains its posture against the use of Title 42, the Trump-era policy that effectively shuts off access to asylum at our southern border," Garza said. "There are concrete ways that the Biden administration can develop the appropriate infrastructure to support a safe and orderly welcome while not trampling on the rights of men, women and children to seek asylum. The time is now to deploy them."

The United States is capable of safely accommodating access to migrants on the southern border and demonstrated it in the past with the orderly wind down of the Remain in Mexico policy, Garza said.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) renewed its legal battle against the Federal government to block the Title 42 policy after the Biden administration conveyed no intention to terminate the rule any time soon.

The policy has been left in place to help deter the hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing into the United States illegally from Mexico over the last several months.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows that Border Patrol agents encountered 188,829 undocumented migrants on the country's border with Mexico in June, bringing the total number of apprehensions in the region since October to more than 1.1 million. As of October, more than 751,844 migrants have been turned away at the US southern border under the Title 42 policy, according to CBP data.

Border Patrol officials have indicated that the month of July saw even larger groups coming across the border more frequently and continuing into early August.