USA can close the border with Mexico when “it is collapsed” if Congress adopts a bill revealed this Sunday after a bipartisan agreement that toughens immigration policy, a condition of the Republicans to unlock funds for Ukraine.
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The legislative package includes total financing of $118.3 billionwith 60 billion to help war-torn Ukraine – matching the White House’s request – and 14.1 billion to Israel, according to a summary published by Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray.
The agreement also includes $20.2 billion for U.S. border security.but it remains to be seen if this text will be approved by Congress in this election year.
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The pact reached by a group of Republican and Democratic senators provides for “a new emergency authority to close the border” between the United States and Mexico when “it is collapsed,” President Joe Biden reported in a statement.
If adopted, Authorities may restrict border crossings if the daily average of migrants reaches 4,000 in a weekbut they will be obliged to prohibit them if they exceed an average of 5,000 a day – in a period of seven consecutive days – or 8,500 in a single day, reads the text of the bipartisan agreement.
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The government is limited to using the new authority to 270 days during the first year, 225 days for the second and 180 for the third, he adds.
During the activation time, authorities must process at least 1,400 asylum applications at ports of entry “in a safe and orderly manner.”
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It is not clear that the project has the 60 votes necessary to overcome the first vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate, scheduled for Wednesday at the latest.
And it is unlikely to get approval in the House of Representativescontrolled by the Republicans.
Its leader, Mike Johnson, an ally of former US President Donald Trump, He has already warned that he will arrive dead.
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Trump, a big favorite for the Republican presidential nomination, He described it, before even knowing the content, as a “horrible betrayal of open borders.”.
Among some Democratic congressmen, especially those with Hispanic origins and migrant advocates, The pact also raises blisters in a party that promised to work to grant citizenship to millions of migrants who have been living illegally in the United States for years.
And Biden arrived at the White House with the promise of humanizing migration to leave behind the heavy-handed policy under Trump that allowed the separation of families on the border with Mexico.
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“While this agreement does not address everything I would have liked, These reforms are essential to making our border more orderly, secure, fair and humane.“Biden says in the statement.
“It will expedite work permits so that those who are here and qualify can work more quickly, will create more opportunities for families to come together, through short-term visits and greater permanent legal avenues”says the Democrat.
Republicans accuse him of carrying out an open border policy. They are based on record-breaking statistics. In December, border authorities intercepted migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border 302,000 times.
New restrictions echo Title 42 policya health rule implemented during the pandemic and that allowed practically all migrants to be blocked at the border.
“Expelling migrants seeking protection means sending at least some of them back into possible danger”says Adam Isacson, a WOLA expert in an analysis published by this NGO.
He considers it “a violation of human rights that the United States agreed not to commit.” when it ratified the Refugee Convention more than 50 years ago.”
Not only do they increase suffering, he says, but they These “expulsion policies and ‘bottlenecks’ also increase the profits of organized crime and corrupt officials in Mexico”, the country to which the vast majority are returned.
