New Migrant Caravan Formed in Mexico Amid Reports That Biden Plans to Drop Trump-era Expulsion Tool

The Biden administration rolled back over a dozen Trump-era immigration directives immediately after stepping into office in January 2021, but kept Title 42, a legal tool giving US Border Patrol the authority to expel migrants under the pretext of health restrictions, in place.

Hundreds of migrants stranded at a refugee camp in Tapachula, southern Mexico have made plans to leave the city near the border with Guatemala and make way for the US border.

“Fellow migrants, we’re leaving Tapachula very early on Friday,” an organiser said Wednesday, citing the lack of resources and work at the camp.

The migrants are expected to set off for Mexico City on foot, and to be joined by others from towns in the state of Chiapas. From there, they plan to travel further north for the US border. Buses have also been requested to carry the vulnerable, including pregnant women and older adults.

Organisers are calling on the Mexican government to grant refugees permits on humanitarian grounds to allow them to travel without difficulties throughout Mexico. “Mexico, tend to your migrants. That’s the only thing we’re asking, and to the people of Tapachula, thank you for supporting us,” the organiser said.

US media reported Wednesday that the Biden administration is planning to scrap Title 42 by 23 May. White House communications director Kate Bedingfield did not confirm the report, but admitted that the administration was working on that “contingency.”

“We are planning for multiple contingencies, and we have every expectation that when the [Centers for Disease Control] ultimately decides it’s appropriate to lift Title 42, there will be an influx of people to the border. And so, we are doing a lot of work to plan for that contingency,” Bedingfield said.

The spokeswoman insisted that Title 42 was “a public health directive…not an immigration or migration enforcement measure.”

Title 42 was put in place in the spring of 2020, allowing US immigration authorities to deport illegal migrants back to Mexico and other countries shortly after being caught by border patrol agents, without the right to hear asylum claims. The measure has remained in place under Biden, despite his administration’s push to revoke a host of other Trump-era immigration-related directives.

Democratic lawmakers and activists have spent the past year attacking Title 42 as a “heartless” and “racist” policy, demanding that President Biden revoke the Trump-era measure immediately. Other officials, including both Republicans and Democrats from states bordering Mexico, have called on the administration to keep the measure in place, fearing that the immigration crisis experienced over the past year will only get worse if it is removed.

The United States experienced a historically unprecedented flow of attempts to illegally enter the country in 2021, with over 1.7 million undocumented immigrants detected on the border with Mexico by Customs and Border Protection as of 30 September (the end of the fiscal year). Hundreds of thousands more entry attempts have been reported in the months since.

The Department of Homeland Security reported nearly 165,000 migrant apprehensions last month, up seven percent over the previous month’s figures. Nearly ¾ of those detained were single adults. 55 percent were processed under Title 42 and expelled.

Mexico, which has been used as a transit point for migrants from Central and South America and Haiti, deported over 114,000 foreign nationals during 2021, according to the Ministry of Interior. Mexico’s refugee assistance service received over 131,000 applications for refugee status in the same year, over 51,000 of them Haitian nationals.

The crisis on the US’s southern border with Mexico began almost immediately after President Biden took office and revoked Trump-era immigration policies, including Trump’s signature border wall and the ‘Remain in Mexico’ programme. Other measures, including promises to “restore and expand” the US asylum system, and to potentially provide a “path to citizenship” for the 11+ million undocumented immigrants already residing in the US, led to a further surge in entry attempts.

Some US lawmakers have blamed US foreign policy for the current crisis, citing Washington’s decades of efforts to destabilise, invade and coup countries seeking to escape America’s political and economic orbit.