Migrants are expelled from Brownsville, Texas to Mexico across the Paso Del Norte international bridge, March 2021 (Paul Ratje/Reuters)


UPDATE, AUG 14:

More than 100 organizations have joined the UN in criticism of the Biden Administration’s expulsions of migrants at the southern US border.

In an open letter to Biden and US officials on Friday, the group said the measures are “cruel, unlawful and ineffective”. They urged the Administration to restore the ability of all migrants to claim asylum.

They said they were “gravely concerned” about expulsion flights to southern Mexico, with reports that migrants are then taken by bus to a remote part of Guatemala.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Thursday that an online asylum registration system will be expanded, with more changes would be announced in the coming days. He did not say which asylum seekers will be eligible to apply.


ORIGINAL ENTRY, AUG 12: The UN High Commission for Refugees expresses concern about the Biden Administration’s expulsion of asylum seekers and migrants to southern Mexico and Central American countries.

The UNHCR noted that those expelled may be returned to dangers in their home countries in Central America, with no opportunity to address the risks.

Administration officials are invoking a Trump-era provision, Title 42, which permits immediate deportations during the Coronavirus pandemic. At the end of July, migrant families — including asylum seekers — were flown to countries including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, noted at the time, “Jamming desperate families through an expedited asylum process would deny them the most basic due process protections and can hardly be called humane.”

See also Biden Administration Fast-Tracks Deportation of Migrant Families

Matthew Reynolds, the UNHCR representative to the United States and the Caribbean, said in a statement, “These expulsion flights of non-Mexicans to the deep interior of Mexico constitute a troubling new dimension in enforcement of the Covid-related public health order known as Title 42.”

Removal from the US to southern Mexico, outside any official transfer agreement with appropriate legal safeguards, increases the risk of chain refoulement – pushbacks by successive countries – of vulnerable people in danger, in contravention of international law and the humanitarian principles of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Reynolds noted that expulsions will strain humanitarian resources in southern Mexico, and increase the risk of transmission of Covid-19.

He reiterated the May appeal of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, for the lifting of Title 42 restrictions.

In June, US Border Patrol apprehended 188,800 people, the highest monthly number in more than a decade. The interceptions included 55,805 family members and 15,253 unaccompanied minors, up from 44,639 and 14,158 in May.