At the outset of Biden’s executive order, uncertainty prevails at the U.S.-Mexico border

EL PASO, Texas – A 24-year-old Venezuelan mother called “fate” that she and her twin daughters arrived in the U.S. hours before new border restrictions were introduced.

Jenny Giro, wearing a purple tracksuit, breastfed her daughters while sitting on the grounds of a bustling migrant shelter in the border town of El Paso, Texas.

The timing of the three’s illegal entry into the United States was coincidental: They crossed the border and turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents at 9 a.m. on June 4, shortly before the Biden administration declared a border emergency and issued an executive order limiting asylum. security.

“I was shocked when I found out (about the executive order) because I had no idea something like this would happen,” Giro told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was fate that I came when I did.”

Within hours of Giro’s arrival, she was examined by border officials, fitted with an ankle monitor and released. On Friday, the 24-year-old was resting in a shelter in El Paso waiting for a free bus ride north, courtesy of the Texas state government.

Local U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials did not respond to questions about how much, if any, the new executive order has impacted migration flows in this section of the border in its early days. The agency updates its publicly available database on migrant apprehensions only once a month.

Management of the Sacred Heart migrant shelter, whose operations are among those most likely to see immediate changes in border policy, said it could take several weeks before the full scope of the executive order’s impact becomes apparent.

The new policy is the most restrictive border rule introduced by President Biden, blocking access to the asylum application process once the number of illegal border crossings reaches 2,500 per day. It ends when the consecutive weekly average is below 1,500. Crossings have not been this low since July 2020.

Asylum provides humanitarian protection for people who experience certain types of persecution or torture in their home countries and allows people to remain in the U.S. permanently.

Explore‘I’d rather be deported’: There’s little hope in Georgia immigration court

Migrants are still eligible for asylum if they can show there are “exceptionally compelling circumstances”, such as a health emergency or imminent risk of harm. Exceptions also include unaccompanied children and victims of human trafficking.

The purpose of Biden’s executive order is to accelerate rapid deportations of migrants crossing the border illegally – a sanction that involves a five-year ban on re-entering the country.

Advocates and immigration lawyers said the policy change is unlikely to stop migrants from trying to enter the country, at least in the short term. Many potential border crossers are already on their way to the border – a long journey through Central America and Mexico. Migrants interviewed by AJC at the Sacred Heart shelter said it took them months to get from their homes to the southern border. And experts in the field said so until the border is completely closed – which this new order will not do – word will spread that it is still possible to enter the US

“There is always hope,” Imelda Maynard, an attorney at Estrella Del Paso Legal Aid, told a group of journalists on Friday.

Limited detention and deportation options limited the immediate impact of the new executive order. The administration has not scheduled more deportation flights to increase the number of migrants returning to their home countries under the new border measure, according to Associated Press reports. The United States can only deport a few nationalities to Mexico through its southern border. Most migrants must be flown back to their country of origin.

At the Sacred Heart of Jesus shelter, the number of new migrant admissions was already showing a downward trend. On average, about 90 people sleep on the shelter’s foldable mats, while the shelter can accommodate 120 people. That’s a far cry from December 2023, when shelter director Michael DeBruhl said nearly 1,000 people lined up outside his facility seeking help. Illegal entries into the U.S. reached an all-time high this month, with crossings averaging more than 8,300 per day.

DeBruhl, a former Border Patrol agent, said he attributes the change to increased enforcement of illegal migration laws in Mexico.

Antonio Bolivar, a 35-year-old Venezuelan migrant at Sacred Heart, said he was deported three times back to Guatemala, Mexico’s neighbor to the south, while trying to reach the United States with his wife and two children. He said his failed attempts to reach the United States tested his resolve, but his fourth attempt was successful. He arrived in the US at the end of May. He said he was determined to continue trying to give his children a better future.

According to DeBruhl, it will likely take about a month for the dust to settle and the effects of the executive order to become clear, while both U.S. officials in the North and migrants and smugglers in the South assess what implementation looks like.

“The thing is that the Border Guard will bear the burden of this order and will have to consider everyone,” he said. “We will have all the Border Patrol agents making the decisions and all the nuances of the policy that was just implemented,” he said.

When Title 42, a pandemic-era policy intended to restrict border crossings, expired in May 2023, it took some time for the expected border expansion to materialize.

“So it could happen now. I mean, maybe we won’t know for a month or a few weeks (what will happen). “I think everyone tends to wait and watch on the south side,” DeBruhl said. “We haven’t really seen any difference over the last few days.”

It didn’t take long for the new asylum restrictions to draw condemnation from supporters of immigrant communities, including in Georgia.

“The right to seek asylum in the event of persecution is a fundamental human right. Any action by this administration to prevent people fleeing persecution from seeking safe haven by seeking asylum is reprehensible and should be strongly condemned,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, legal director of Project South, an Atlanta-based organization that advocates for detained immigrants – in a statement.

Gigi Pedraza, executive director of the Atlanta-based Latino Community Fund, echoed that sentiment.

The executive order “shows that immigrants are once again first on the chopping block when it comes to political gains,” she said in a statement referring to the 2024 elections. “We are disappointed, to say the least.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said it plans to challenge Biden’s measures in court.

In El Paso, DeBruhl said new asylum restrictions on people who enter illegally will likely result in people seeking entry through an oversubscribed online application known as CBP One, which allocates 1,450 slots daily for legal entry into the US at the official port of entry. According to the May report of the Center for International Security and Law. Robert Strauss at the University of Texas at Austin, wait times for an appointment at CBP One can take up to eight months.

Migrants can only begin trying to book appointments with CBP One once they arrive in northern Mexico.

“It’s hard to get an appointment and the travel is really hard. Let’s say they’ve been traveling for five months. They were robbed, beaten and kidnapped. And then they’ll schedule a meeting four months from now. There is a lot of frustration,” DeBruhl said.

Antonio Bolivar, a Venezuelan immigrant, considers himself lucky. He was able to get an appointment at CBP One at the Paso del Norte Port of Entry, an eight-minute walk from the Sacred Heart shelter, after just a month of waiting.

He plans to take a construction job in El Paso to earn enough money to buy a bus or plane ticket to Tennessee and meet friends there. Because he entered the country legally through the application, in a few weeks he will have a work permit in hand and will not have to fear deportation for at least two years.

Still, he said he felt sorry for other Venezuelans whose ability to come to the U.S. may have been more limited because of Biden’s executive order.

“There is a certain sadness, isn’t there? “I have friends and family members who were thinking about coming and they may have to wait,” he said.

This story was reported as part of an El Paso-based fellowship on U.S. immigration policy organized by Poynter, a professional development institute for journalists, with financial support from the Catena Foundation, a private family foundation based in Colorado.