Biden administration pauses deportations for 100 days and suspends “remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers

1/21/2021

Source: The Texas Tribune

The Department of Homeland Security late Wednesday announced two significant immigration policy changes that include a 100-day pause on deportations for some undocumented immigrants. The department also announced that asylum seekers who attempt to enter the United States will no longer be part of a controversial policy enacted under former President Donald Trump that has forced tens of thousands to wait in Mexico for American court hearings.

The deportation moratorium and changes to the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as “remain in Mexico,” come on President Joe Biden’s first day in office where he earlier signed multiple executive orders rolling back additional Trump-era immigration policies.

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Migrant caravan: Mexico presses US to reform immigration policies

1/18/2021

Source: BBC

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has urged the US to make major reforms to its immigration policy as thousands of migrants were blocked by police in neighbouring Guatemala.

Mr Lopez Obrador said he was hopeful that President-elect Joe Biden would agree to work with Mexico and other countries on the issue.

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A new migrant wave pleads for answers in Mexico

01/10/2021

Cries of desperation on Mexico’s southern border.

This is the town of Tapachula, where migrants who have crossed over from Guatemala are demanding humanitarian visas.

Mexico’s national guard is deployed in full riot gear. Guatemala and Honduras have now announced they’re deploying their own troops, after news surfaced that new caravans of migrants are forming in Central America with the eventual goal of reaching the United States.

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Mexico leader, U.S. president-elect discuss migration

12/19/2020

Source: Yahoo! News

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he spoke with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden by phone Saturday, five days after he sent a tardy and somewhat chilly letter of congratulations to Biden.

“We reaffirmed our commitment to work together for the good of our peoples and our countries,” López Obrador wrote in his social media accounts.

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Migrant caravan sets off to U.S. from Honduras, risking new tensions

12/20/2020

Source: Reuters

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (Reuters) – A few hundred Hondurans formed a caravan bound for the United States on Wednesday after hurricanes battered the country, posing a fresh challenge to efforts to stem illegal immigration from Central America on the cusp of a new U.S. administration.

Mostly younger migrants with backpacks and some women carrying children left the northern city of San Pedro Sula on foot for the Guatemalan border after calls went out on social media to organize a caravan to the United States.

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Migrant caravans could be early test for Biden and post-Trump relations with Mexico

12/02/2020

Source: The Washington Post

MEXICO CITY — President Trump didn’t force Mexico to pay for a border wall, but his bully tactics turned the country into a formidable barrier to the destitute Central Americans who travel north toward the U.S. border in mass migration events known as caravans.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office in 2018 after telling supporters that his country would no longer do the Americans’ “dirty work” on immigration enforcement, was forced to do exactly that because of Trump’s threats to cripple the Mexican economy with trade penalties.

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‘He hurt me’: migrants who accused Ice gynecologist of abuse speak out

11/21/2020

Source: The Gaurdian

A group of 30 US senators and 75 congressmen and women have demanded an immediate halt to deportations of women who claim they were abused by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) gynecologist, as the furore over alleged abused in Ice custody continues to grow.

The development comes as some of the women recounted their experiences to the Guardian, two of them detailing the painful and invasive procedures they were subjected to by Dr Mahendra Amin in Georgia. Both women were then listed for deportation days after they spoke out against the doctor, in what their lawyers say is a “pattern of intimidation” designed to silence abuse claims.
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The Coronavirus Is Now Another Risk of U.S. Migration

11/17/2020

Source: Foreign Policy

TLAPA DE COMONFORT, Mexico—When Claudio Ortega Maldonado was 17, he left his home in the mountains of Guerrero, never to return. Ortega knew what awaited him if he stayed: He grew up in poverty in a family of seasonal farmers and began working as a child. He hoped to offer his parents and 11 siblings a better life with the money he sent home from New York City, and to build a house in Mexico that he could eventually return to. After 13 years away, he wanted to surprise his family and return on Mother’s Day this year. Instead, Ortega died of the coronavirus on April 22 in a Brooklyn hospital at the age of 29.

In New York, Ortega had quickly landed a job as a cook, though he was undocumented. He worked 10-hour shifts six days a week, earning $3,000 a month—and sending $450 each month to his family. He sent presents for his siblings such as clothes and shoes and kept a close eye on his parents’ well-being. Every payday, he would buy a lottery ticket, dreaming of buying his parents a house in Mexico City and returning home to sell produce. Ortega, more than 2,100 miles away, was his family’s main provider.

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The US is sending migrant children from other countries to Mexico alone, violating an agreement between the 2 nations

11/04/2020

Source: Business Insider

Several Central Americans said they were surprised to learn their migrant relatives who were supposed to make it to the US were instead expelled to Mexico, The New York Times reported.

The report comes a few days after The Times initially reported that migrant children from other countries have been expelled alone to Mexico by US border agents despite an agreement between the United States and Mexico to only send Mexican children or those who were accompanied by adults.

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Migrant Families Were Confused When U.S. Expelled Children Into Mexico

11/03/2020

Source: The New York Times

Eva Acuña spoke with her teenage sister Esther by phone early on the morning of Aug. 15, about an hour before Esther planned to enter the United States near the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez and ask for asylum — the end of a long journey from Esther’s home in El Salvador.

Ms. Acuña, a legal permanent resident in the United States, expected to hear next from American immigration authorities about her sister’s status. But instead, about eight hours later, she received a call from the authorities in Mexico. Instead of taking her sister into custody, the U.S. Border Patrol had delivered the girl back to Mexico, where she was in a children’s shelter.

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