July 29, 2024

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Developments

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, told CBS News that, if elected, Harris would keep in place the Biden administration’s current restrictions on asylum access at the U.S.-Mexico border. “The policies that are, you know, having a real impact on ensuring that we have security and order at our border are policies that will continue,” Chávez Rodríguez told CBS reporter Camilo Montoya-Gálvez.

This means that Harris might keep in place the June 2024 rule prohibiting asylum for most migrants who arrive at the border between ports of entry, and the May 2023 rule prohibiting asylum for migrants between ports of entry who did not first seek protection in a third country en route to the United States. Both rules are facing legal challenges, as U.S. law guarantees the right to seek asylum on U.S. soil regardless of how the asylum seeker arrived.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Kamala Harris’ Campaign Chief Signals She Would Keep Biden’s Border Crackdown if Elected” (CBS News, July 27, 2024).

While this story is far from over, the Venezuelan regime’s evidence-free announcement that President Nicolás Maduro won July 28 elections dashes hopes that a transition from authoritarianism to democracy might reduce or even reverse migration from the South American nation. Instead, if Maduro’s victory stands, polling of Venezuelans indicates that more will consider leaving.

• Leopoldo Lopez, Markos Kounalakis, “Venezuelan Elections Could Turn the Refugee Tide” (Washington Monthly, July 28, 2024).

Venezuelans awaiting CBP One appointments in Ciudad Juárez told El Imparcial that they fear that the country’s political and economic crises will make life there even more intolerable.

• Tadeo Campoy, “Venezolanos Varados en la Frontera de Mexico Temen Agudizacion de la Crisis Tras Elecciones en Venezuela” (El Imparcial (Tijuana Mexico), July 28, 2024).

A bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators and representatives met in Mexico City last week with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum. Border and migration concerns “took center stage” in their conversations, reported the Arizona Republic.

• Silvia Solis, “Border Security, Economy Took Center Stage in Talks Between Sheinbaum, Members of Congress” (The Arizona Republic, July 27, 2024).

The flow of northbound-transiting migrants into Honduras from Nicaragua has fallen by more than half, from 1,482 per day in May to 791 per day during the first 24 months of July. “Migration experts claim that the significant decrease is due to the closure of several points in the Darien Jungle,” reported Nicaragua’s Radio Corporación.

• “Disminuyen Cruces Irregulares de Migrantes Entre Nicaragua y Honduras” (Radio Corporación (Nicaragua), July 27, 2024).

Though 97 percent of fentanyl seizures have been happening in Arizona and California, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is devoting more interdiction resources to the El Paso area out of a belief that crackdowns further west may push cross-border opioid smugglers to west Texas, Milenio reported.

• Norma Ponce, “Eu Redobla Operativos en Frontera Chihuahua – Texas para Combatir el Trafico de Fentanilo” (Milenio (Mexico), July 28, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Major media outlets published more analyses of Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s border and migration record.

In an in-depth piece at the New Yorker, Jonathan Blitzer recalled that Harris never had a position of responsibility for managing the border: instead, she was charged with addressing root causes of migration from Central America. This “was, by definition, slow and strategic work—essential from a policy perspective but politically inopportune.”

• Jonathan Blitzer, “The Real Story of Kamala Harris’s Record on Immigration” (The New Yorker, July 28, 2024).

“The distinction has not stopped Republicans from misleadingly branding Harris as the nation’s ‘border czar’ and blaming her for the sharp upticks in migration under the Biden administration,” read an analysis by Lauren Gambino at the Guardian, which notes that as a senator, Harris was an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s border policies.

• Lauren Gambino, “Republicans Want to Grill Harris for Her Immigration Record – but What Is It?” (The Guardian (Uk), July 27, 2024).

Progressive Democratic legislators, and leaders of Latino and immigrants’ rights groups, are supporting Harris despite disagreements with the Biden administration’s hardening of some border and migration policies, like its bans on asylum, the New York Times reported.

• Jazmine Ulloa, “Latino Leaders Set Aside Their Rocky Past With Kamala Harris on Immigration” (The New York Times, July 27, 2024).

Centrist Democratic legislators, Politico reported, are pushing for Harris to name as her vice-presidential candidate Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who they say “knows the border well.” Kelly is among a handful of Democratic senators who urged the Biden administration to keep the Title 42 pandemic expulsions policy in place before it expired in May 2023.

• Adam Cancryn, Anthony Adragna, Sarah Ferris, Ursula Perano, “Hill Dems Believe This Vp Contender Would Help Address Harris’ Biggest Weakness” (Politico, July 28, 2024).

Joe Biden’s administration has expelled or deported more migrants than Donald Trump’s, recalls a Politico analysis by Jack Herrera. This is largely because Biden’s administration has seen a much larger population of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

• Jack Herrera, “Trump Says He Wants to Deport Millions. He’ll Have a Hard Time Removing More People Than Biden Has.” (Politico, July 28, 2024).

A Washington Post feature looked at Chinese migration to the U.S.-Mexico border, which has increased sharply in the past 18 months. Migrants cite economic hardship and political repression, exacerbated by COVID-19 lockdowns, as primary reasons for leaving. Those interviewed by the Post paid smugglers between $8,000 and $60,000 per person for their journeys to the United States. Ecuador, which has been most Chinese migrants’ first entry into the Americas mainland, recently suspended visas for arriving Chinese citizens, but higher-priced alternative smuggling routes emerged “within days.”

• Cate Cadell, Li Qiang, Nick Miroff, “Migrants From China ‘Walk the Line’ to U.S. Border, Testing Biden and Xi” (The Washington Post, July 29, 2024).

“With its latest anti-asylum rule, mirroring similar bans by Trump, the Biden administration is forcing individuals into the hands of traffickers and cartels, pushing them to more dangerous routes,” wrote Jennifer Babaie of the El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center at the Austin American-Statesman.

• Jennifer Babaie, “U.S. Treatment of Refugees Is Cruel, Forcing Them Into the Hands of Cartels” (Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, The Austin American-Statesman, July 29, 2024).