Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Just six months ago, he was condemning President Donald Trump for building a protective wall on the southern US-Mexican borders to check the influx of illegal migrants. Now Joe Biden finds thousands of them waiting to cross over from the controversial border porous at several places.
Currently, the US authorities have custody of at least 15,000 child immigrants. The influx of illegal immigrants in the last two months of the Biden administration, which reversed the Trump-era policy of checking them through a wall built on the border, has suddenly increased.
And, to keep the illegal influx in wraps, journalists were not allowed inside the detention centers since Biden took office, although the White House claimed that they will be permitted.
On Wednesday, US President Biden directed his deputy, Vice President Kamala Harris, to start diplomatic efforts to stem mounting migration at the southern border amid a deepening humanitarian challenge there, media reported.
Harris, after being crowned as immigration czarina, will collaborate with officials from Mexico and Central America, the way Biden did when he, as Vice President under Barack Obama, responded to a huge influx of children and families.
“Needless to say, the work will not be easy,” Harris admitted, “But it is important to work.”
The Biden administration swung into action after alarming images went viral earlier this week showing packed border holding cells. Young migrants at the crowded facility in Donna were separated by plastic sheeting.
After taking office on January 20, Biden terminated construction work on Trump’s border wall and called for reviews of legal immigration programs scrapped by the former president.
According to reports, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) alone found nearly 9,500 children unaccompanied by a parent or guardian at the south-western border in February, as more than 15,000 are currently in federal custody, nearly doubling the previous record.
This huge influx of vulnerable people, coinciding with the Covid-19 pandemic, sent officials in a tizzy, and scrambling for more space to safely accommodate children, many of whom are stranded in inhospitable CBP facilities long after the legal time limit of 72 hours.
“Harris will work first on the goal of stemming the flow of irregular migrants to the US…but at the same time, the real goal is to establish a strategic partnership with these countries based on respect and shared values,” a senior administration official said.
Media reports said scores of migrants are fleeing Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) to escape economic instability violence, corruption, and extreme weather conditions. While the US is accepting a large number of unaccompanied minors, the US authorities are struggling to provide housing and care for all of them.
About 300 migrant children currently held in US federal care facilities have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
The numbers of people’s influx have grown in the last two months. They include hundreds of unaccompanied minors who are being held in immigration detention facilities.
The Democrats had roundly criticized Trump over his government’s treatment of young migrants at the US-Mexico border.
Since January, the Biden administration has reversed a policy of turning away unaccompanied children, instead choosing to process them and place them with sponsoring families in the US. Biden’s critics said his policies have led to a fresh surge in illegal migration.
In February, the US Customs officials took more than 100,000 people into custody along the southern border, a 28% increase on the previous month. Many of those arriving at the border have fled poverty and violence in Central America.
If she succeeds, Harris could defuse an issue that the Republican Party, and Donald Trump, in particular, has used as an effective political weapon against the Democrats, earning the gratitude of influential immigration activists. If she fails, the ensuing political fallout could derail the Biden presidency and overshadow all its early accomplishments, media said.