September 5, 2024

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Developments

The Biden administration may alter the language of its June 4 proclamation and rule in a way that will place asylum further out of reach for most migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry.

U.S. law states that people on U.S. soil who fear return to their country may apply for asylum “whether or not” they arrived “at a designated port of arrival.” The June rule alters that—in a way that is now facing challenges in federal court—by “shutting down” asylum access whenever Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) migrant encounters at the border, not counting unaccompanied children and “CBP One” appointments, exceed a weekly average of 2,500 per day. (Asylum is currently “shut down.”) People who cross between ports of entry are placed into expedited removal, a rapid process that denies a hearing; if they specifically express fear of return, they may get an interview with an asylum officer but must quickly meet a very high standard of fear.

The June rule would reinstate the right to asylum between ports of entry if the daily average drops below 1,500 per day for a week, and remains there for two more weeks. (In August, the daily average appears to have been about 1,870 per day.) The changes that the Biden administration is reportedly considering would require the 1,500-per-day average to sustain for 28 days or even “several weeks,” and the daily count could expand to encompass unaccompanied minors. This new standard “would make President Biden’s tough but temporary asylum restrictions almost impossible to lift, people familiar with the plans” told the New York Times.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Biden Administration Weighs Making It Harder to End Asylum Crackdown at Border” (CBS News, September 4, 2024).
• Hamed Aleaziz, “Biden’s Asylum Restrictions Were Meant to Be Temporary. That Could Change.” (The New York Times, September 4, 2024).
• Ted Hesson, “Biden Officials Weigh Tougher Asylum Ban at Mexico Border” (Reuters, Reuters, September 4, 2024).
• “Andrea R. Flores @Arosaflores on Twitter” (fwd.us, Twitter, September 4, 2024).

A cargo train derailed Tuesday night in Chihuahua, Mexico south of the border city of Ciudad Juárez. About 15 migrants were riding aboard. A 4-year-old Venezuelan child died, his mother’s foot was severed, and a 17-year-old boy suffered head injuries.

• Jose Estrada, “El Sueno Migrante se Convirtio en Pesadilla para los Padres de Aaron, el Nino Que Murio Tras Descarrilarse el Tren” (Norte (Ciudad Juarez Mexico), September 4, 2024).
• Daniel Borunda, Omar Ornelas, “Child Killed, Migrants Injured When Border-Bound Mexican Train Derails South of Juarez” (El Paso Times, Yahoo!, September 4, 2024).
• Julian Resendiz, “Train Derailment Kills Child, Spills Sulfuric Acid Near Highway” (Border Report, September 4, 2024).
• Blanca Elizabeth Carmona, “Muere Nino Migrante en Descarrilarse de Tren en Chihuahua” (Milenio (Mexico), September 4, 2024).

Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega said that fewer Nicaraguan citizens have been emigrating.

This is probably accurate: the average monthly number of CBP encounters with Nicaraguan migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border was 4,176 in 2021, 13,656 in 2022, 8,291 in 2023, and 3,389 so far in 2024. Another 95,000 Nicaraguans (5,000 per month) have arrived via the Biden administration’s offer of a two-year humanitarian parole status for citizens with passports and U.S.-based sponsors.

However, Mexico’s government, which has vastly stepped up efforts to block migrants this year, has measured a 2024 increase in encounters with Nicaraguan migrants: 1,290 per month in 2021, 3,411 per month in 2022, 1,637 per month in 2023, and 5,818 in January-July of this year.

• “Ortega Presume Haber Reducido la Migracion a Pesar de Exodo Nica” (Nicaragua Investiga, September 4, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

The Washington Examiner revealed that Texas’s state government gave transportation companies $221 million in taxpayer funds to transport 119,700 migrants to Democratic Party-governed cities in the U.S. interior. That adds up to $1,848 per bus ticket, more than a first-class one-way flight would typically cost.

• Anna Giaritelli, “Texas Records Reveal State Spent $221 Million Busing Migrants From Border” (The Washington Examiner, September 4, 2024).

Denverite published a thorough analysis of charges that members of the Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s largest organized crime group, are taking over apartment buildings in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado. The story has reverberated through conservative media and social media in recent days, finding its way into some of Donald Trump’s remarks. Most local officials and residents deny that the gang has a major presence or control over the buildings.

• Kyle Harris, “Everyone’s Talking About a Venezuelan Gang in Aurora. Here’s What We Know — and What We Don’t” (Denverite, September 4, 2024).
• “‘No Report’: Cpd Addresses Viral Social Media Posts on 911 Call About Armed Venezuelan Gang at Chicago Building” (NBC 5 Chicago, September 4, 2024).

The Associated Press reported that some migrants from China are deciding to settle in Mexico instead of the United States. Baja California state until recently was home to Mexico’s largest Chinese-Mexican population, but the largest number of Chinese immigrants are now in Mexico City.

• Caterina Morbiato, “Chinese Migrants Flock to Mexico in Search of Jobs, a Future and, for Some, a Taste of Freedom” (Associated Press, Associated Press, September 4, 2024).

The Times of London accompanied the Águilas del Desierto, an Arizona-based humanitarian group that searches for migrants in need of aid, and recovers the remains of some of the hundreds who perish in the state’s deserts each year.

• Keiran Southern, “In the Land of Open Graves, the Us Border Crisis Has a Human Face” (The Times (UK), September 4, 2024).

A CNN review of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’s social media posts found that “she criticized the border wall more than 50 times during the Trump administration, calling it, among other things, ‘stupid,’ ‘useless,’ and a ‘medieval vanity project.’” As WOLA noted in a brief video yesterday, Harris now supports legislation that includes, as part of a compromise with Republicans, a commitment to spend remaining Trump-era border wall-building funds.

• Andrew Kaczynski, Daniel Medina, Em Steck, “Harris Move to the Center on Border Wall, Asylum Contradicts Her Years of Progressive Immigration Positions” (CNN, September 4, 2024).

On the Right

• Billal Rahman, Dan Gooding, “Republicans Condemn ‘Mass Parole Scheme’ as Mexico Buses Migrants to Us” (Newsweek, September 4, 2024).
• Tom Joyce, “Yes, Democrats Opposed Building More Border Barriers” (The Washington Examiner, September 4, 2024).
• Ryan Foley, “Biden-Harris Border Policies Violate Catholic Social Teaching, Report Claims” (The Christian Post, September 4, 2024).
• John Daniel Davidson, “Dems Want to Keep the Border Open as an Electoral Strategy” (The Federalist, September 4, 2024).