The day on the border saw 8,900 Migrants arrested and more on the way
On the Importance of Social Media Misinformation for Migrants in the U.S. Arrival and Work Permittency
The Biden administration also allowed nearly 500,000 Venezuelan migrants who are already in the country to seek work permits and protection from deportation. The recent influx of over 100,000 migrants in New York City has overwhelmed shelters and strained resources and led to pressure from leaders in New York. Though the Biden program doesn’t apply to new arrivals, it touched off debate about whether the action would encourage more people to migrate.
“The smuggling organizations are spreading misinformation with a global reach that they couldn’t do before,” said John Modlin, the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector chief, who is coordinating the response to border crossings in Arizona and California. In the past, they couldn’t talk to the village they were in. Through social media, they can hit people all around the world.”
Migrants like Mr. Soto and his mother are arriving on a tailwind of stories of friends and relatives who reached New York or Chicago months earlier. Many also believe false claims from smugglers and social media that migrants would definitely be able to remain in the United States if they could make it in.
Depending on factors such as available flights and home countries, thousands of successful migrants who cross the border are deported immediately after they arrive. Others who file asylum claims and wait for their cases to be heard in immigration court are able to stay in the United States while they wait for their cases to be heard.
Immigration enforcement and detention for illegal immigrants: Why families keep crossing the border, and how to keep doing it if you are unable to come to America
Hundreds of families passed through a welcome center run by a local nonprofit that gave them food and clothing to take to their destinations in the north.
“We are starting again from scratch,” said Francisco Sierra, who fled from Venezuela with his wife and two young sons. We didn’t have anything else but our clothes.
The number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border was down for a few months. Now those numbers are climbing again, on pace to match the historic highs of last year.
The influx of migrant families drove that. Immigration authorities in August arrested more families than any other month on record.
The scale might be new, but immigration experts say the underlying issues are not. There are no easy solutions to discouraging migrant families from crossing the border illegally.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former Homeland Security official and Bipartisan Policy Center member, said there have not been any policy reductions in the long run.
The Flores Settlement limits the time that immigration authorities can hold migrant children in detention, according to Brown.
But former President Trump’s administration was determined to try, arguing that families and smugglers were taking advantage of generous U.S. policies. The Trump administration used even harsher tactics, deliberately separating children from their parents at the border.
She said that it’s hard to deter someone with desperation through harsh punishments, especially migrants who think that if they don’t come to America their families will die.
John Kelly, then-White House chief of staff, told NPR that deterrence is a big name of the game. Family separation would be a tough deterrent.
Source: Despite efforts of 3 U.S. administrations, migrant families keep crossing the border
The FERM Program and the Desperation of Migrant Families: Francisco Sierra, a teacher, and his wife, Francisco, in the Darien Gap
The program is intended to speed up immigration proceedings for migrant families, which is why the Biden administration is expanding it. The FERM program has only processed 1,600 families so far.
“It seems like family detention, but painted with a different brush,” said Cindy Woods of Americans for Immigrant Justice. “It’s another attempt to deter more families from coming to the United States.”
Francisco Sierra worked as a teacher before moving to Venezuela with his family. His wife worked in a chemical plant. Sierra said they were barely getting by due to the collapsing economy in Venezuela, and did not have much hope for their two boys.
Sierra said in Spanish, “The effort is no longer worthwhile.” “My career was wasted years after graduating from a university.” We looked for a way to emigrate to a better life for the family.
Even Homeland Security officials can seem a bit shocked by the desperation of migrants who are willing to cross the dangerous Darién Gap, a remote border crossing through the jungle in Panama.
The immigration official at the Department of Homeland Security said this week that it was heartbreaking. Nuñez-Neto recently traveled to the Darién Gap, where tens of thousands of migrants per month are making their way north toward the U.S.
“You see families with really small children, babies, kids in diapers. Coming out of that jungle after having walked for four or five days with no food and little water. Just in really dire conditions,” he said.