Arturo Sanchez Jimenez
The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, July 24, 2024, p. 10
Seven weeks after the new immigration policy signed by Joe Biden to restrict asylum applications on the southern border of the United States came into effect, Monday saw the lowest level of arrests of irregular migrants by US authorities on its southern border since 2018.
According to the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, the number of arrests dropped to around 1,500 in 24 hours, the lowest figure in nearly six years.
I don’t think this has happened since 2018.
said Salazar in a meeting with journalists yesterday at his official residence, where he stated that in this matter We are on the right track. I don’t know if we can go down that right track in the long term, but I am confident.
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At the meeting, Salazar stated that the cabinet of the virtual president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, is a strong team
while highlighting the achievements of the relationship between the Biden administration and that of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in matters of security, economy and migration, in connection with which he attributed the decrease in migratory flows to the policies implemented by his government and the Mexican government.
On June 5, U.S. President Joe Biden issued a strict immigration measure that drastically restricts asylum applications from undocumented migrants who cross the border irregularly.
Until that date, the Border Patrol detained an average of 4,000 migrants a day, many of whom requested asylum upon being apprehended, while others turned themselves in to officers after crossing the border to be processed as asylum seekers.
Under Biden’s order, when apprehensions of migrants crossing the border illegally exceed 2,500 per day for a period of seven days, the processing of asylum applications at the border is suspended for those who arrive at border crossings without an appointment, as well as for those who are detained or turn themselves in to the Border Patrol.
Asylum restrictions – which do not affect migrants who make an appointment to request asylum through the CBP One application, which allows undocumented foreigners to set foot on U.S. soil legally – will remain in place until the number of arrests drops to 1,500 a day and will continue that way for about seven days.
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security reported that the number of apprehensions made by the Border Patrol had dropped to an average of 1,900 per day.
In June, Border Patrol processed 83,536 migrants who crossed the border with Mexico through irregular routes, the lowest number since 2021.
