Det har varit oväntat tyst vid Rio Grande i sommar – allt färre migranter från Latinamerika har försökt att olovligen korsa gränsen till USA. Enligt förklaring till den plötsliga minskningen kan vara att Vita husets nya migrationsstrategi ser ut att ha gett effekt, skriver Foreign Affairs. Striktare gränskontroller, fler lagliga sätt att ta sig till USA och att asylansökningar utvärderas i ursprungsländerna är några av åtgärderna i det nya paketet. Om strategin fungerar på lång sikt kan den bli förebild för hur andra regeringar världen över ska ta emot människor på ett säkert sätt. Washington Has Found a Formula for Managing Migration – and Now Must Build on It By Andrew Selee 9 August, 2023 Throughout the spring, observers across the political spectrum predicted a sudden surge in illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexican border. For more than a year, over 150,000 people—and often well over 200,000—had been arriving at the southern border each month, straining capacity throughout nearby communities and leaving many awaiting entry to the United States in perilous conditions in Mexico, where they were sometimes vulnerable to exploitation, robbery, and assault. But in May came the expiration of Title 42, a temporary COVID-19 policy that had allowed the U.S. government to expel migrants quickly back into Mexico. Even U.S. President Joe Biden, who had worked to quell mayhem at the border, predicted a sudden influx of migrants. Instead, the opposite has happened. Far from devolving into chaos, the border has experienced an eerie quiet. In June, the average number of daily unauthorized crossings dropped from more than 6,000 a day over the prior twelve months to a mere 3,300. In fact, there were fewer unauthorized arrivals that month than at any point since February 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and shortly after Biden took office. Although the numbers have ticked up slightly in July to around 4,300 arrivals a day, they have remained far below the prior year’s average. Much to Washington’s surprise, the Biden administration appears to have hit on a successful formula for managing dysfunction at the border—at least for now. The new migration policy is built around a three-part strategy: tightening enforcement at the U.S.-Mexican border, expanding legal pathways for entry, and vetting candidates for asylum and humanitarian protection in countries of origin rather than primarily at the border itself. This integrated approach marks a departure from the previous strategy of confining the entry decision-making process almost exclusively to the border. All three policy elements are at an embryonic stage, and more migrants could attempt to cross into the country in the coming months as the deadly summer heat at the border gives way to a cooler fall. But so far, in the crucial months following the end of Title 42, the Biden administration’s strategy appears to be working. The new policy faces challenges: its survival and chances of success depend on whether there is sufficient political will and logistical capacity to continue building it out and, just as important, whether U.S. courts deem it legal. But if the strategy works over the long term, it will mark an ambitious effort to reimagine how governments manage the flow of migrants in a safer, more organized way that moves the admittance process much further upstream, long before most potential migrants reach the border. And the need for such an effort grows more crucial by the day. With people around the world more mobile than ever and many developed countries facing labor shortages, governments are struggling to ensure that people arrive through legal pathways. Migration systems have long been plagued by a mismatch between the supply of willing workers abroad, some of whom also have protection needs, and the narrow legal avenues for entry, despite the real demand for labor in destination countries. Without legal pathways, irregular migration routes multiply. This deficit has exposed migrants to dangerous journeys, undermined the credibility of immigration systems, and poisoned the politics around immigration in country after country, not least in the United States. If the Biden administration’s approach succeeds, it would set a precedent that could be adapted elsewhere—to the benefit of both migrants and the destination countries. First, however, the policy has to work. So far, the Biden administration’s strategy of expanding legal pathways while reducing unauthorized migration appears to be paying off. But the new policy nonetheless faces a slew of legal and logistical challenges that threaten its viability in the short term. Determining the strategy’s chances of survival requires assessing its three separate elements, how they fit together, and the distinct hurdles they must overcome. The first—and most visible—measure has received the most attention so far. The overwhelming majority of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexican border take place between ports of entry—designated crossing points where people may enter the country—in the vast unoccupied stretches of desert and scrub that characterize the southern boundary. The Biden administration has made it much harder for people to seek asylum if they enter the country without authorization by creating a presumption of ineligibility for asylum for anyone who crosses between ports of entry. Unaccompanied minors are exempt from this rule, but others who enter in an unauthorized location must now demonstrate that they qualify for asylum. Those deemed ineligible can be deported either to Mexico or to their country of origin. Once formally removed, they face a five-year ban on reentering the United States, under threat of criminal prosecution. In exchange, asylum seekers can now make an appointment through an online app, CPB One, and eventually present themselves at a port of entry to be processed for admission into the United States, with roughly 1,450 appointment slots available each day. The threat of deportation appears to be working as a credible deterrent to many potential unauthorized migrants, as they risk being sent home directly and losing the money they have invested in the journey north. At the same time, the access to appointments at ports of entry has created an orderly process through which migrants can request entry.
But these measures represent more of a change on paper than they do in practice. In reality, tens of thousands of unauthorized migrants are still being released into the United States to wait for immigration court hearings. The U.S. government does not have the institutional capacity to carry out adequate numbers of initial screenings that determine whether an asylum seeker has a credible fear of persecution or torture. Unable to identify those who are ineligible for asylum under the new rules and subsequently deport them, the U.S. government has often reverted to the status quo. It allows migrants—especially families, which the government is reluctant to hold in detention—to wait out the process in the United States or, in some cases, to return voluntarily back to Mexico. Meanwhile, those who present themselves at ports of entry with CBP One appointments are still not undergoing immediate screenings for asylum, because there simply are not enough asylum officers. Instead, these migrants are being admitted to the country and later allowed to apply for asylum. Once they apply, they are then assigned a hearing date that is often many years down the road, and are consigned to a legal limbo in the meantime. But even though the reality on the ground marks less of a change than the new rules suggest, the shift toward greater border enforcement and expanded deportation has loomed large enough that it may well have reduced the number of migrants arriving at the border. Perhaps even more important, the Biden administration has understood that enforcement alone will never stop migrants who are determined to enter the United States. So the administration has combined enhanced enforcement with a second measure: the expansion of legal pathways for entry for migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. By targeting the groups from Latin America and the Caribbean that are most likely to attempt a dangerous journey north with a smuggler, this policy aims to encourage the use of legal avenues for entry while discouraging illegal entries. For instance, the Biden administration has expanded seasonal employment visas, which have skyrocketed from 275,000 in 2020 to over 422,000 in 2022—an increase that has mostly benefited Mexicans and Central Americans. This expansion indicates both a growth in demand for agricultural seasonal workers and a policy decision to expand the number of nonagricultural seasonal visas. But the largest expansion of legal pathways is through a new set of sponsorship initiatives. This program allows U.S. citizens and residents to request entry for someone living abroad; these foreigners are then admitted under what is known as “humanitarian parole.” The use of humanitarian parole long predates today’s surge at the southern border; U.S. presidents have invoked such authority to expedite the entry of vulnerable populations around the world since the 1950s, including Cubans in the 1960s, Vietnamese in the 1970s, and Afghans in 2021. More recently, the Biden administration has expanded this process by allowing U.S. citizens and legal residents to sponsor first Ukrainians escaping Russia’s invasion, and then later Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans fleeing authoritarian governments or collapsing states. So far, over 140,000 Ukrainians and 160,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans have been admitted to the United States through these sponsorship programs over the past two years, supported by religious and civic groups, family members, and average citizens. The Ukrainian program is uncapped, and up to 30,000 nationals from the four Latin American and Caribbean countries can be admitted each month as of this year. The Biden administration has also created a series of family sponsorship programs for citizens of Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and it has promised to revive halted programs for Cuba and Haiti. This process allows those who have been approved for a family-based visa to enter the United States before the visa has been issued, often speeding up the process by several years and deterring people from preemptively migrating illegally. The administration has also restarted the Special Cuban Migration Program, a lottery that offers 20,000 Cubans special entry to the United States each year and was created as a result of a 1994 agreement between the U.S. and Cuban governments to control migration from the island. All told, these steps represent a major expansion of legal pathways for admittance into the United States—one large enough that the administration hopes it encourages would-be migrants to seek lawful ways of entering the country. The third and final element of the strategy has been to relocate much of the vetting processes for humanitarian protection to the countries of origin, rather than having it take place almost entirely at the U.S. border through asylum applications. The United States has attempted small-scale iterations of this upstream vetting process before, mostly in Central America and Colombia. The current effort, however, represents a considerable expansion of refugee resettlement from the region, with the Biden administration hoping to admit around 5,000 refugees a month from the Americas through this process.
Expanding the resettlement program will take time, as it will require the tools to identify potential refugees and the resources to resettle them. As part of this effort, the administration has announced that it is opening screening centers known as “safe mobility offices” in countries throughout Latin America to vet possible candidates for refugee resettlement, as well as those eligible for other legal pathways. For now, offices with a limited set of services are opening in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. But the administration has announced plans to open more offices across the hemisphere and increase the kinds of vetting they can do. The Canadian and Spanish governments have also come on board, offering both refugee resettlement and employment-based visas through these U.S. offices. In attempting to move the vetting process abroad, the Biden administration has run into complications. Host countries have legitimate concerns that putting safe mobility offices in their territory could generate expectations about migration that cannot be met even with the expanded pathways. This is an especially critical concern in South America, where over five million displaced Venezuelans already live in other countries, and many countries have gone to great pains to integrate them into schools, labor markets, and local communities. As the overseas vetting program expands, the Biden administration may want to move discreetly and build up its screening capacity to effectively reach target groups before advertising the process to the wider population. The greatest threat to the new strategy may be the lawsuits the Biden administration faces from all sides. Civil rights groups oppose limits on asylum eligibility between ports of entry. They have invoked U.S. immigration law, which mandates access to asylum for all, including those who cannot safely wait for an appointment at a legal crossing point or apply for asylum in a transit country. A district court judge has already struck down the policy change, but an appeals court has allowed the rule to stand while it considers the case. Conversely, a group of Republican governors has filed a lawsuit targeting the sponsorship program, arguing that the decision to grant humanitarian parole to large groups of people on the basis of nationality violates the purpose of humanitarian parole, which was designed for case-by-case individual decisions. If the ruling against the asylum rule stands, it would hollow out the enforcement part of the strategy, whereas a ruling against the sponsorship program would eliminate one of the most important legal pathways that has emerged in recent months. Given that the Biden administration’s strategy depends on all three elements functioning together, a blow to any one could prove fatal to the strategy as a whole. It is possible, of course, that the administration will win both sets of cases or that these cases will wind their way through the courts for months or years without the policies being stopped, giving the strategy time to take hold. Recent Supreme Court decisions, including one in June that allowed the Biden administration to set priorities on enforcement and detention, seem to signal some deference to federal government discretion in setting immigration policy, and many cases take years to resolve fully. But even if the courts favor the Biden administration, the strategy could still fall apart under its own weight. The seasonal worker programs will take time to develop, as they depend on employer demand. The sponsorship programs, although much faster, need to be better targeted, as they are contingent on migrants having sponsors and passports, which are difficult requirements for some potential migrants to meet. The refugee resettlement system is still being scaled up throughout the hemisphere. And even for those admitted to the United States through legal pathways, it could still take years for immigration courts to reach a final decision, even as the Biden administration is working to implement a policy that would allow faster proceedings by allowing decisions to be made by asylum officers. And, of course, the enforcement capacities at the border are much weaker than they seem on paper. Already, more families are flocking to the border over the past month, anticipating that the U.S. government will be reluctant to detain them. Real challenges of resources, political will, and legal authority could deal deadly blows to the Biden administration’s new strategy. As temperatures cool and smugglers learn more about the gaps in new border policies, the number of migrants at the border could swell once again. The Biden administration’s strategy makes eminent sense in theory, but implementing it requires expanding current efforts in multiple directions at the same time in ways that have not been tried before. If the policy survives, evolves, and eventually succeeds, however, it could reshape migration patterns in the hemisphere for decades to come. It might not reduce the number of migrants arriving from Latin America and the Caribbean, but it would ensure that those who arrive do so through legal channels, reducing chaos at the border. The United States and the rest of the world have seen the devastation and tragedy of dysfunctional migration systems. A safe, fair, and orderly migration policy in the United States is starting to emerge; if it succeeds, it could serve as an example of what might be possible elsewhere in the world. © 2023 Council on Foreign Relations, publisher of Foreign Affairs. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. Read the original article at Foreign Affairs.