Washington Examiner – by Anna Giaritelli, Cassidy Morrison
Contingency plans for handling a surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border have yet to be seen despite President Trump’s warning last month that his administration was “focusing aggressively on the Texas border” due to what he described as “undercounted” hundreds of thousands of coronavirus outbreaks in Mexico and Latin America.
While top Department of Homeland Security officials have warned in recent months that the United States could see another border crisis if hundreds of thousands or millions of people flee poverty stricken and virus-ridden home countries for the U.S., government officials will not share how they are preparing and how they plan to avoid another 2019 crisis when media documented abhorrent conditions at immigration detention facilities nationwide.
“It could be a public health disaster at the border, not just a public health crisis,” said Andrew Arthur, a research fellow for the immigration restrictionist think tank the Center for Immigration Studies. “There is a nightmare scenario that thus far we haven’t seen — Mexico is unable to control COVID, there’s a huge outbreak along the border on Mexico’s side, and those individuals cross the border seeking treatment.”
Arthur said he has “every reason to believe [the Department for Health and Human Services] has contingency plans in effect.” Yet HHS, which cares for unaccompanied children who arrive at the border, told the Washington Examiner in an email that its Office of Refugee Resettlement “stands ready to receive, from the Department of Homeland Security, minors who have illegally crossed our nation’s border for temporary shelter required by U.S. law,” but did not elaborate on whether it has enhanced holding facilities, medical personnel, or supplies for such a surge.
A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, the DHS agency responsible for initially arresting illegal border crossers, said the Border Patrol “constantly prepares and plans for possible unmitigated migration flow.”
“We have contingency plans in place to address the effects of pandemics, such as our current COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters and other events,” the spokesman wrote in an email. “We will continuously monitor resource levels and make adjustments, as needed, to accomplish the USBP mission and protect the American people.”
DHS also did not elaborate on what concrete steps CBP or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which holds immigrants in longer-term facilities, has taken in light of the anticipated surges.
Immigration experts across the political spectrum say the Trump administration isn’t preparing despite repeated warnings that the border could soon be under threat. They attributed it to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that border officials not detain immigrants. CBP responded to the March recommendation with plans to “expel” anyone immediately who was encountered illegally entering the country, including those who claim asylum prior to removal. What is normally a days to weekslong process of being returned home turned into a 96-minute process of being sent back to Mexico for more than 90% of all illegal crossers.
“If it takes a little under two hours to remove an individual from the U.S.-Mexico border, what kind of planning does that really require of the U.S. government?” said Cris Ramon, senior policy analyst for the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Immigration Project. “They’re going to lean in on Title 42 expulsions as their main mechanism to deal with any surge … I think that that will create an incentive not to really boost any real capacity to test individuals for COVID-19 and then determine the most effective way of adjudicating their claims for asylum or removing them from the U.S.-Mexico border.”
For the success that the Trump administration has seen under Title 42 when it comes to deterring illegal immigration, it may already be losing its effect. Since its first full month of implementation in April, the number of people arrested at the southern border has doubled — one indication that people are not deterred. This surge in arrests comes a year after the 2019 border crisis when federal law enforcement officials at the southern border were seeing more than 100,000 people illegally cross into the country each month. Although those numbers have dropped in the last 12 months, the sudden spike indicates the Trump administration’s steps to deter illegal immigration are hitting a bump.
“As the pandemic wanes, there will be pressure on the Trump administration to lift that Title 42 restriction,” said Arthur.
The greatest potential for a surge could come after November, most experts agreed, because of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s vow not to continue immediate expulsions of illegal crossers, which could give many migrants a green light to know they will not be immediately removed from the U.S. if apprehended by Border Patrol.
The CDC recommendation could also be challenged and struck down by the courts as unlawful, said Brian Griffey, the North American researcher for Amnesty International.
“If the government is interested in reducing the burden of a potential surge in the fall, it should reinstitute and increase the H-2B visa program, fast-track family reunification from Mexico and Central America, deregulate the H-2A visa, make it easier to get asylum, and remove the COVID-19 immigration bans,” Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration analyst at libertarian Cato Institute, wrote in an email. “Those actions will drive migrants into the legal migration system and away from black markets.”