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Nearly 28,000 Haitians have been intercepted by the Border Patrol along the U.S.-Mexico border in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, compared with 4,395 in 2020 and 2,046 in 2019.
-Jason Lastra

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Credit... Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times

Michael Posner is a lawyer and human rights advocate who was assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor from 2009-2013 and is the director for the Center of Business and Human Rights at N.Y.U. Stern School of Business.

Last month, the Biden administration announced that it had cleared a makeshift tent camp where thousands of Haitians had congregated under a bridge linking Mexico and Del Rio, Texas. They had arrived there desperate to gain admission to the United States, many fleeing persecution in Haiti and seeking the protection of our asylum law. The administration's unsteady response to this crisis has revealed, once again, the broken nature of this country's asylum system. It also is a grim reminder of the longstanding U.S. tolerance of government corruption and the denial of basic human rights in Haiti.

Since the adoption of the Refugee Act of 1980, those who arrive at our border or have already entered the country are entitled to seek asylum if they can demonstrate a "well-founded fear of persecution" based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group. This law has roots in the Holocaust and U.S. commitments made after World War II to provide refuge to people fleeing persecution. But the asylum system has been hampered from the outset by political controversy and bureaucratic dysfunction.

Many of the Haitians who camped under the bridge in Del Rio had made multiyear journeys through Latin America and then to our southern border. Some were inspired to try to enter the United States now because of a misimpression that President Biden's replacement of former President Donald Trump - and the Biden administration's decision to extend temporary protected status to Haitians already in the country - signaled an opportunity for them to come here, too. Temporary protected status suspends deportations of Haitians already in the United States because of the current instability in their country. Like immigrants from around the world, these Haitians, including the many asylum seekers, are looking for a new home where they will find stability, better jobs and more security than their own country can offer.

Discriminatory treatment of Haitians is not new. Forty years ago, I was an expert witness in litigation in Florida where lawyers representing an earlier generation of Haitian asylum seekers successfully challenged the Reagan administration's Haitian program. U.S. authorities at that time targeted Haitians arriving in Florida for mass detention, and intercepted Haitian boats in the Caribbean to prevent them from reaching this country.

Overseen by then-Associate Attorney General Rudolph Giuliani, President Ronald Reagan's policy was deemed, in a series of federal court cases, to violate the U.S. constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process of law. When the plaintiffs asked one federal judge to release roughly 2,200 detained Haitians to give them a real opportunity to seek asylum, I appeared before the court and, with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, committed to finding each of them a volunteer lawyer.

The Haitian cases of the 1980s became a catalyst for broader reforms of the U.S. asylum system. Over four decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, our country developed a more humane asylum system that gave thousands of people who met the "well-founded fears of persecution" standard their day in court. These reforms were slow in coming and often imperfect, but they represented a good-faith effort by the federal government to abide by the spirit of the U.N. Refugee Convention, whose provisions the United States adopted when it ratified the U.N. Refugee Protocol in 1968.

When Donald Trump took office, he broke with this bipartisan history and sought to blow up the asylum system entirely, obliterating U.S. policy and principle as they apply to those who seek asylum from within America and to refugees, who seek similar legal protections while still abroad.

Among other draconian measures, Mr. Trump reversed the decades-old policy of allowing those who appear at the border with a credible fear of persecution the right to enter the United States to make their formal asylum claim. As they did in so many other areas, the Trump team also decimated the administrative capacity of the U.S. government to process asylum claims or resettle refugees brought here from overseas. When the Biden administration assumed office in January, it inherited a dysfunctional system made worse by Republican obstruction and shamelessness that continues to this day.

The plight of the Haitians has been further complicated by decades of misrule, corruption and brutality by a series of Haitian governments that received steady U.S. financial and political support despite egregious records on human rights. For far too long, Washington has sought to perpetuate the status quo in Haiti in the name of short-term stability. When I visited Haiti in 2013 as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, every one of the human rights activists I met there echoed this theme. Rather than promoting democracy and human rights, successive U.S. administrations had actually emboldened corrupt government leaders, exacerbating the problem.

The Biden administration needs to prioritize human rights and democratic governance in Haiti, which are essential if the island nation is ever to escape its familiar cycles of domestic chaos and mass migration. Unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, where the United States had little history and scant leverage to promote political reform leading to democratic governance, in Haiti, U.S. influence is consequential. American financial aid and diplomatic efforts to promote reform should be directed at those within Haitian society who have a genuine commitment to human rights and the rule of law.

More immediately, the Biden administration should allow all Haitians who arrive at our borders and have a credible fear of persecution in their home country the right to enter the country to pursue asylum claims. And given the current instability and lawlessness in Haiti, even those who do not qualify for asylum should have their deportation deferred - an administrative remedy that would postpone their removal, at least as long as the current unrest persists in Haiti.

Haiti is often described by cynics as a corrupt debtor nation or worse. Mr. Trump reportedly mused aloud about why America welcomes any refugees from Haiti and other countries he derided with a vulgarity. He and others forget the role Haitians have played in our own history - for example fighting by our side during the American Revolution. As Barry Jenkins, the film director and screenwriter, put it in a tweet in July: "Hell, between the Haitians who got on boats to fight alongside colonists against the British during the Revolutionary War and the Louisiana Purchase forced upon Napoleon by the Haitian Revolution, WE owe THEM a serious debt."

Michael Posner (@mikehposne r) directs the Center for Business and Human Rights at the N.Y.U. Stern School of Business. He was assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor from 2009-2013.
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Opinion | What America Owes Haitian Asylum Seekers

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Michael Posner is a lawyer and human rights advocate who was assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor from 2009-2013 and is the director for the Center of Business and Human Rights at N.Y.U. Stern School of Business.

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Facts -
* January 2018, Trump requested the amount of $18 billion (£13.6 billion) from Congress, for the next decade's initial phase of construction, but the bill ultimately failed. Some money was allocated by Congress in 2018 for projects at the border.

*  Trump used national emergency powers in 2019 to redirect funds from the Department of Defense following Congress's denial of more money for the wall.

* Having been about $15 billion spent for the development of the barrier coming from numerous US government departments, including the Department of Homeland Security, and the Defense and Treasury Departments.

* It was formerly estimated a cross-border wall could cost anything from $12 billion to $40 billion.

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President Donald Trump is visiting the southern border in Texas to claim success in the construction of a border fence with Mexico.

The White House said his visit would "mark the completion of more than 400 miles of border wall - a promise made, promise kept".

So how much of the border wall has Mr Trump managed to build during his term in office?

How much is new?

Various types of fencing totalling 654 miles (just over 1,000 km) were already in place before Mr Trump became president in 2017.

These ran through the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The Trump administration say they've completed more than 400 miles of border wall since then.

It's 452 miles (727 km) in total, according to the latest US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) information (4 January 2021).

However, only 80 miles of new barriers have been built where there were none before - that includes 47 miles of primary wall, and 33 miles of secondary wall built to reinforce the initial barrier.

The vast majority of the 452 miles is replacing existing structures at the border that had been built by previous US administrations.

President Trump has argued that this should be regarded as new wall, because it's replacing what he called "old and worthless barriers."

Did Mexico pay for the wall?

In 2016, President Trump repeatedly claimed Mexico would pay for the wall. This didn't happen.

The US government has paid for the wall, and there've been arguments over how to fund it between the Trump administration and Congress.

In January 2018, Mr Trump asked Congress to pay $18bn (£13.6bn) over the next decade for an initial phase of construction, but the bill ultimately failed.

Some money was allocated by Congress in 2018 for projects at the border.

However, in 2019 Mr Trump used national emergency powers to divert funds from the Department of Defense after Congress rejected more money for the wall.

There has been around $15bn spent for the construction of the barrier coming from various US government departments, including the Department of Homeland Security, and the Defense and Treasury Departments.

It was originally estimated a cross-border wall could cost anything from $12bn to $40bn.

Despite this, in the run-up to the 3 November 2020 election, President Trump continued to say that "Mexico is paying for it".

In the past, he's implied that a new trade agreement (signed last year) involving Mexico and Canada would indirectly save the US money, which could be spent on the wall.

However, it's not clear how exactly this would work.

President Trump also pledged to reduce illegal movement across the border.

The number of people detained at the border increased significantly between 2018 and 2019, but dropped off in 2020.

"The decrease in apprehensions comes as the movement of migrants in the Americas and worldwide has slowed during the Covid-19 outbreak, with governments fully or partially closing their borders to stem its spread," according to Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, a senior researcher at Pew Research, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington DC.

What's Joe Biden's plan for the border?

President-elect Joe Biden has said that he will not continue further construction of the wall.

He said he would not build "another foot" and made clear he opposed taking funds from the Department of Defense.

Instead, the Democratic president-elect plans to focus on using technology along the border to detect illegal activity.

Joe Biden's official website says: "Biden will direct federal resources to smart border enforcement efforts, like investments in improving screening infrastructure at our ports of entry."

However, it is unclear what the new administration will do with contracts for wall construction which have already been awarded under Mr Trump - but are as yet not finished.

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Trump's wall: How much has been built during his term?

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It was a key part of Mr Trump's 2016 election campaign, so how much of the wall has he got done?

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FACT: Donald Trump banned travel from 7 countries 5 of which were majority Muslim. These nations were Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. The Supreme Court upheld Trump's executive order. Trump's orders said they will look at case-to-case basis for exceptions but there is no proof of that.

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Lawyers offering assistance to international travelers at Los Angeles International Airport last year after the ban had been imposed. Credit... David McNew/Getty Images

To President Trump's supporters, the Supreme Court decision upholding his travel ban from seven countries - five with Muslim majorities - was an affirmation by the highest court in the land of his right to secure America's borders and protect it from terrorism.

To opponents, the ruling validated an anti-Muslim agenda that betrayed American ideals, subverted the Constitution and upended the hopes of thousands of families separated by war and deprivation.

Here are three outcomes of the decision, which bans or severely restricts entry into the United States by people from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

The ruling sends a blunt message of rejection to visa seekers from some of the most destitute and dysfunctional countries. Immigration and civil-rights lawyers fear that it slams the door on many desperate people from the Muslim-majority countries that were affected, particularly those with relatives in the United States, who saw the Supreme Court as their last hope.

The timing of the ruling, as European Union countries are toughening policies toward refugees and asylum seekers, reinforced an atmosphere of a Western backlash to migrants, even as the global population of forcibly displaced people grows.

Three of the Muslim-majority countries affected by Mr. Trump's order - Libya, Yemen and Syria - have known only war for years. A fourth, Somalia, has suffered through varying degrees of mayhem for decades. While antiterrorism experts consider the countries to be breeding grounds for violent extremism, the Supreme Court's ruling will do nothing to hasten the end of the underlying conflicts there.

Although Mr. Trump's executive order allows for granting exceptions on a case-by-case basis, lawyers said they had seen little or no evidence of such a process. Hundreds of Yemeni families with American relatives, for example, who have fled to Djibouti, a tiny country in the Horn of Africa, to file waiver applications for visas because the United States Embassy in Yemen is closed, have been summarily denied waivers and remain stranded there.

A house after an airstrike by Syrian forces on the town of Busra al-Harir. Three countries affected by the travel ban - Libya, Yemen and Syria - have known only war for years. Credit... Mohamad Abazeed/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

"All of them were hanging their hopes on the Supreme Court decision," said Diala Shamas, a staff lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based advocacy group that sent investigators to Djibouti and produced a report with the Rule of Law Clinic at Yale Law School about the stranded families.

"All of those people who were holding their breath are now facing the difficult choice of either permanent separation from their families or returning to Yemen," she said.

Mohamud Noor, a Somali-American activist in the Minneapolis area, home to one of the largest Somali immigrant communities, said the Supreme Court decision was devastating to many who wanted relatives in their homeland to legally join them.

"I think we were expecting the Supreme Court would stand on moral grounds," Mr. Noor said. "We live in America. This is a land of immigrants."

The Muslim-majority country facing the most disruption is Iran, which historically has led the others in nonimmigrant visas to the United States, despite the estrangement in relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

By some estimates one million American citizens of Iranian descent live in the United States, and many have traveled to Iran for family visits. But it is difficult to see how their Iran-based relatives can visit them.

Fear first rippled through the Iranian-American community with Mr. Trump's initial iteration of a travel ban 18 months ago, which caused chaos in its disorganized rollout and was blocked by the courts.

But the angst has returned with the latest iteration, especially now that it has been validated by the Supreme Court, said Jamal Abdi, vice president of policy at the National Iranian American Council, a Washington-based advocacy group.

"Iranians cannot travel here unless they get a waiver. The waiver process is unpredictable, with no explanation of how it will be implemented," he said. "So there is extreme uncertainty. I think a lot of people are living with this."

The grand bazaar area of Tehran. Iran is the Muslim-majority country facing the most disruption from the travel ban. Credit... Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The impact is likely to further anger Iran's hard-line opponents to Mr. Trump as he has moved to isolate the country. Iran already is feeling the ill effects of Mr. Trump's decision last month to withdraw the United States from the 2015 nuclear agreement and reimpose economic sanctions, which penalize businesses in other countries for doing business with Iran.

The Supreme Court decision came the same day the State Department said it expected all countries to cut their imports of Iranian oil to zero under the reimposed sanctions that take effect in November.

The practical effects on the two non-Muslim majority nations on Mr. Trump's travel ban - Venezuela and North Korea - are minimal, lending weight to critics who said their inclusion was meant to mask what was essentially a ban that affected Muslims.

The restrictions on Venezuelans apply only to a narrow category of government officials deemed responsible for failing to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security in identifying visa seekers who are security risks.

While the restrictions on North Koreans apply to all, there are hardly any who are allowed by their government to come to the United States.

"Most people have forgotten that North Korea was added to the list of countries subject to the ban, mostly as a way of making it look less like an anti-Muslim measure," said Evans J.R. Revere, a former State Department diplomat who is an expert on North Korea.

While North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, may regard North Korea's inclusion on the travel ban as an unfriendly act, he is far more concerned with all of the other sanctions imposed on North Korea because of the country's nuclear and ballistic missile development.

Mr. Trump, who met with Mr. Kim at a groundbreaking summit meeting in Singapore on June 12, has said the North Korean leader is committed to denuclearization, but large questions remain over how, when or even whether it will happen.

Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at Tufts University, said "the inclusion of North Korea is likely to be reversed by the administration - that is, used as a chip in further advancing the illusion of rapprochement."

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Trump Travel Ban: How It Affects the Countries (Published 2018)

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To President Trump's supporters, the Supreme Court decision upholding his travel ban from seven countries - five with Muslim majorities - was an affirmation by the highest court in the land of his right to secure America's borders and protect it from terrorism.

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Facts

On September 11, 2020, HHS published the final version of the March interim regulation enabling the CDC Director to issue orders suspending the “introduction” of people at the border

The Title 42 order has been modified three times since the Biden administration took office. On February 2, 2021, the CDC issued a notice formally exempting unaccompanied children from expulsion. Following a “reassessment” of public health protocols, on July 16, 2021, the CDC formalized this exemption for unaccompanied children. On August 2, 2021, the CDC replaced the October 2020 Order with a new order continuing Title 42 expulsions while exempting unaccompanied children. This order remains largely the same as previous orders.

Title 42 also applies to individuals seeking asylum at ports of entry. In March 2020, as part of Title 42, CBP also stopped processing all asylum seekers who arrive at ports of entry and ask for humanitarian protection. This led to nearly 15,000 people who had been waiting on lists for an opportunity to request asylum at ports of entry (a practice known as “metering”) to be left in limbo, with no ability to seek asylum.

Title 42 has had the counterproductive effect of significantly increasing the number of arrests at the border. That is because under Title 42, individuals who are expelled to Mexico within hours after apprehension can simply try again a second or third time in hopes of getting through

Those subject to Title 42 who aren’t sent to Mexico are held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or CBP detention and flown back to their home countries without any opportunity to seek asylum.

Individuals who are expelled do not receive an order of deportation, but CBP collects their biometrics and records their contact with the agency. It is unclear how this information will be used in the future, or how it may impact an individual’s ability to seek protection in the United States once the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided.

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The United States has long guaranteed the right to seek asylum to individuals who arrive at our southern border and ask for protection. But since March 20, 2020, that fundamental right has been largely suspended. Beginning on that date, both migrants seeking a better life in the United States and those wanting to apply for asylum have been turned away and "expelled" back to Mexico or their home countries. These border expulsions are carried out under a little-known provision of U.S. health law-section 265 of Title 42-which the former Trump administration invoked to achieve its long-desired goal of shutting the border to asylum seekers. Over 1.8 million expulsions under Title 42 have been carried out since the pandemic began. However, nearly half of those expulsions were of the same people being apprehended and expelled back to Mexico multiple times. This is because Title 42 has led to a significant increase in repeat crossings at the border. Half of all single adults from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador who have been expelled to Mexico under Title 42 have been apprehended crossing the border again. As a result, Title 42 has significantly increased overall border crossings. In fact, 1 in 3 apprehensions since Title 42 expulsions began have been of a person on at least their second attempt to cross the border.

Despite the claim made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that this order was necessary from a public health perspective to protect the United States, public reporting has shown that the policy originated in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Trump White House. Reports indicate that CDC scientists expressed opposition to the invocation of Title 42, arguing that there was no public health rationale to support it. Ever since then, public health experts outside the CDC have continued to agree, arguing that while international borders largely remain open to other travelers, there is no need to turn away refugees and expel them to their home countries or Mexico.

The Biden administration kept Title 42 in place until April 2022, when the CDC announced that it no longer believed Title 42 was necessary for public health purposes. The CDC cited the widespread availability of rapid tests and vaccination for COVID-19 as measures sufficient to limit concerns about public health. The termination of Title 42 was set to go into effect on May 23, but a federal court in Louisiana blocked the Biden administration from doing so.iv As of the time of publication, Title 42 remains in effect following that court order.

There also are ongoing court battles as to whether expulsions under Title 42 were legal in the first place. In March 2022, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals announced that it was unlawful to expel migrant families under Title 42 without giving them an opportunity to seek protection from persecution.

What is Title 42 and how did it go into place?

On March 20, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued an emergency regulation to implement a specific aspect of U.S. health law. Section 265 of U.S. Code Title 42 permits the Director of the CDC to "prohibit ... the introduction" into the United States of individuals when the director believes that "there is serious danger of the introduction of [a communicable] disease into the United States." The HHS regulation allows any customs officers-which includes officers of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) such as Border Patrol agents-to implement any such order issued by the CDC.

The same day, CDC Director Robert R. Redfield relied on this regulation to issue an order suspending the "introduction" into the United States of certain individuals who have been in "Coronavirus Impacted Areas." The order targets individuals who have entered the United States from Canada or Mexico and "who would be introduced into a congregate setting" at a port of entry or in a Border Patrol station. This includes individuals who would normally be detained by CBP after arriving at the border, including asylum seekers, unaccompanied children, and people attempting to enter the United States without inspection. Citing the new CDC order, that same day the Border Patrol began "expelling" individuals who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without giving them the opportunity to seek asylum.

The CDC order does not apply to U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and their spouses and children, nor does it apply to U.S. military personnel or those who arrive at a port of entry with valid travel documents, although the CDC maintains that it has the authority to expel U.S. citizens under Title 42 if it chooses. The CDC order also includes an exemption for anyone that DHS determines should be allowed into the United States on "consideration of significant law enforcement, officer and public safety, humanitarian, and public health interests."

On September 11, 2020, HHS published the final version of the March interim regulation enabling the CDC Director to issue orders suspending the "introduction" of people at the border. In the final version of the regulation, the CDC acknowledged for the first time that its order is being used to turn away refugees and asylum seekers and declared its belief that doing so was legal. This was followed by a new CDC order in October 2020 which was largely the same as the March order and reinforced the government's plan to continue expelling people encountered at the southern border.

The CDC's order has been modified five times since the Biden administration took office, including the April 1, 2022, order to terminate Title 42 expulsions in May, which is currently on hold due to a court order. On February 2, 2021, the CDC issued a notice temporarily exempting unaccompanied children from expulsion. Following a "reassessment" of public health protocols, on July 16, 2021, the CDC again formalized this exemption for unaccompanied children. On August 2, 2021, the CDC replaced the October 2020 order with a new order continuing Title 42 expulsions while exempting unaccompanied children. On March 12, 2022, the CDC formally terminated Title 42 for unaccompanied children in response to a court order overturning the exemption.

How has Title 42 been implemented at the border?

Under an agreement reached with the Mexican government in late March 2020, the Border Patrol began sending to Mexico most Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, and Salvadoran families and single adults encountered at the southern border. The group of nationalities subject to expulsion to Mexico remained unchanged until May 2022, when the Biden administration reached an agreement with Mexico to accept "thousands" of Cubans and Nicaraguans as well. Despite this agreement, there has been extensive documentation of individuals expelled to Mexico who do not fit within this category, including Haitian asylum seekers. People expelled are usually driven by bus to the nearest port of entry and told to walk back to Mexico, often without their luggage and other belongings. Since late January 2021, the Mexican state of Tamaulipas (which borders South Texas) has barred CBP from expelling families with children under the age of seven. In response, CBP has carried out "lateral" transfers by plane or bus to other locations along the border, such as El Paso, where Mexican authorities will allow the agency to expel families with young children. However, because the capacity to carry out "lateral flights" is limited, CBP has been forced to release the majority of families who cross the border in South Texas, despite President Biden's prior insistence that he would expel all families if he could.

People who are subject to Title 42 are not given an opportunity to contest their expulsion on the grounds that they would face persecution in the country to which they will be expelled. There is an extraordinarily limited exception to Title 42 for people who "spontaneously" inform CBP officers that they fear being tortured in the country to which they will be expelled. However, in order to receive an official screening by an asylum officer for exemption under that provision, the CBP officer must first determine that the claim is "reasonably believable." From March 2020 through September 2021, just 3,217 people were screened for torture prior to being expelled, and only 272 people were granted an exemption and permitted to seek asylum.

Those subject to Title 42 who aren't sent to Mexico are held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or CBP detention and flown back to their home countries without any opportunity to seek asylum. For example, since Title 42 expulsions began, over 18,000 Haitian nationals seeking asylum have been subjected to this process and summarily returned to Haiti. Flights to Haiti were briefly suspended in summer 2021 after an outcry following President Biden's inauguration. In September 2021, over the objections of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as advocacy groups and many Democratic members of Congress, the Biden administration expelled by plane more than 8,000 Haitians who had sought asylum after crossing the border near Del Rio, Texas.

Individuals who are expelled do not receive an order of deportation, but CBP collects their biometrics and records their contact with the agency. It is unclear how this information will be used in the future, or how it may impact an individual's ability to seek protection in the United States once the Title 42 policy is ultimately terminated.

Title 42 not only applies to individuals crossing the border between ports of entry, but also applies equally to individuals seeking asylum at ports of entry. In March 2020, as part of Title 42, CBP stopped processing all asylum seekers who arrive at ports of entry and ask for humanitarian protection. This left nearly 15,000 people in limbo who had been waiting on lists for an opportunity to request asylum at ports of entry (a practice known as "metering").

Before the practice of expelling unaccompanied children was blocked in court and then later formally ended by the Biden administration, CBP used Title 42 to turn away and expel nearly 16,000 unaccompanied children.xl These expulsions took place despite provisions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act which require the government to protect children who arrive at the border without a parent or legal guardian.

Through the end of April 2022, the Border Patrol carried out more than 1.87 million expulsions.xlii From April 2020 through April 2022, 60.5% of encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border led to an expulsion.
Figure 1: Outcomes of Border Patrol Apprehensions, February 2020 - April 2022

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Southwest Border Encounters, https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters.

It is important to keep in mind that, just because a person is processed under "normal immigration law" and not expelled, that does not mean they are released into the United States. Thousands are subject to "expedited removal" or have a prior order of deportation reinstated. Many people who are not expelled are instead sent to ICE detention, where they may seek asylum through the credible fear process (CFI). Similarly, roughly 1 in 10 people encountered after crossing the border are unaccompanied children who are sent to federal shelters. At no point have more than a third of people apprehended after crossing been directly released at the border (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Estimated Outcomes of Border Apprehension, February 2021 through April 2022

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, "Southwest Land Border Encounters," https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters; U.S. Customs and Border Protection, "Custody and Transfer Statistics FY2021," https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/custody-and-transfer-statistics; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, "Semi-Monthly Credible Fear and Reasonable Fear Receipts and Decisions," https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/semi-monthly-credible-fear-and-reasonable-fear-receipts-and-decisions.

What have public health experts said about Title 42?

Despite the claim that Title 42 is needed to protect against the spread of COVID-19, many public health experts have called for an end to the practice of border expulsions. Starting as early as May 2020, and continuing to the present, public health leaders have called on the CDC to lift the order. According to the experts, the fundamental problem with Title 42 expulsions is that they are targeted primarily at a small number of people seeking asylum at a time when other restrictions in place at ports of entry have been lifted and large numbers of people cross the border daily.

In a letter to the Biden administration in September 2021, public health experts noted that the risk of infection from COVID-19 could be mitigated at the border with "social distancing, providing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), ensuring frequent testing, and offering vaccination" to migrants.xlvi The experts also asserted that Title 42 expulsions themselves could pose a public health threat given that people are detained together "for days to weeks prior to transporting them" for expulsions, which heightens "the risk of COVID-19 transmission across national borders."

How has Title 42 affected asylum seekers?

Title 42 has led to the mass expulsion of thousands of asylum seekers, including those in desperate straits. Many individuals have been sent back to persecution in their home countries or forced to wait in Mexico for a time when the border will reopen to those seeking asylum. Over 215,000 parents and children have been expelled together since the restrictions went into place.

After the Biden administration took office, Mexican officials in the state of Tamaulipas, which borders South Texas, began refusing to permit CBP to expel families with children under the age of seven, citing a new law relating to the treatment of migrant children. As a result, more families are now being admitted to the United States rather than expelled. These families are generally provided with COVID-19 tests and are connected with local nonprofit organizations which help secure transportation to their ultimate destination or a place to quarantine if necessary.

Asylum seekers expelled back to Mexico are often targeted by criminal cartels for violence and extortion. Advocates have documented through surveys and public media coverage nearly 10,000 reports of violence against migrants expelled back to Mexico under Title 42. Hundreds of parents, fearing for the lives of their children, have chosen to self-separate and send their children across the border alone, knowing they will be safer in the United States than in northern Mexico.

Some asylum seekers are expelled back to their home countries, which are the very same countries from which they fled persecution. For instance, over 7,000 Haitians have been expelled back to Haiti after arriving at the U.S. border since September 19. Other asylum seekers have been expelled to southern Mexico, where the Mexican government then expels them to Guatemala in a process of "chain expulsions." The United Nations has expressed concerns that this practice is a violation of international law.

However, not all migrants seeking asylum are expelled. Rising numbers of people from countries other than Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador have been permitted to seek asylum in the United States because Mexico will not allow the Biden administration to expel them back to Mexico. Many of these individuals are sent to ICE detention centers, and during the initial months of the Biden administration the number of people sent to detention from the border rose significantly.

As a result, the outcome for asylum seekers crossing the border can vary wildly and depends more on their nationality and their family status than on any policies or laws inside the United States.

How Has Title 42 Affected Border Crossings?

Despite claims that Title 42 is necessary for immigration deterrence purposes, it has actually had the counterproductive effect of significantly increasing the number of arrests at the border. That is because, under Title 42, individuals who are expelled to Mexico within hours after being apprehended at the border can simply try again a second or third time in hopes of getting through. Some individuals have made dozens of failed attempts to cross the border and been turned back under Title 42 each time. This increase in apprehensions has been seen most among single adults who are not seeking asylum.

Before the pandemic began, just 7% of people arrested at the border had crossed the border more than once. But by October 2020, 38% of all people arrested had crossed the border multiple times that year. In Fiscal Year 2021, 1 in 3 people apprehended at the border had already crossed the border at least once that year. This has led to a dramatic shift in the demographics of border arrests, with the number of encounters of single adults rising every month from April 2020 through May 2021, reaching levels not seen in over a decade (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico Border, October 2012 to April 2022
Single adult apprehensions vs. family unit and unaccompanied child apprehensions

Source: U.S Customs and Border Protection, Stats and Summaries, https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/media-resources/stats?title=Border+Patrol.

Because many people cross the border repeatedly after having been expelled under Title 42, the number of border encounters reported to the public greatly overstates the number of people who are crossing the border. In the 19-month period from the start of Fiscal Year 2021 through April 2022, there were over 900,000 "repeat encounters," meaning that 1 in 3 border encounters was of a person on their second or higher attempt to cross the border (see Figure 4).

Among some groups, recidivism rates are even higher. According to DHS, half of all single adults from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador who are expelled back to Mexico under Title 42 are later arrested on a subsequent attempt to cross the border. And because not every person is apprehended on their second attempt, that means that more than half of individuals expelled to Mexico will cross the border at least one additional time.
Figure 4: Estimates of Unique Apprehensions, FY 2005 to FY 2022 through April 2022

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Congressional Budget Justifications FY 2005-2022; U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Southwest Land Border Encounters, https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters; U.S. Customs and Border Protection, "U.S. Border Patrol Total Apprehensions (FY 1925 - FY 2020)," https://bit.ly/3BNVUlp.

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A Guide to Title 42 Expulsions at the Border

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The United States has long guaranteed the right to seek asylum to individuals who arrive at our southern border and ask for protection. But since March 20, 2020, that fundamental right has been largely suspended.

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Fact:
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Title 42 is a public health and welfare statute enacted in 1944 that gave the U.S. surgeon general the authority — later transferred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — to determine whether communicable disease in a foreign country poses a serious danger of spreading in the U.S., either by people or property entering the country.

If the CDC finds that a disease does pose a threat, it can, with approval from the president, temporarily prohibit them from entering the country to avert danger.

That’s just what it did at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, amid surging deaths from disease, the Trump administration put forward a novel interpretation of Title 42: U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents could immediately remove anyone entering the country without authorization to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. This new interpretation of policy closed the border to nonessential travel in the “interest of public health.”

React:
I do believe that if we as a nation are taking extreme caution to protect the public during a pandemic it is not unreasonable to limit immigration or have a more stringent entry protocol for immigration. I think more testing should be done at the border as well as vaccine sites for people to easily get the vaccine upon entry.

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At the center of today's most heated immigration debate is a decades-old health statute dusted off by the Trump administration that is reshaping U.S. policy at the border.

Citing the threat of COVID-19, the U.S. government has over the last year and a half carried out nearly expulsions of migrants at the border without offering them the opportunity to request asylum or other humanitarian protections. That policy - known as Title 42 for the section of the health statute where it originated - has been met with legal and political challenges, but it remains on the books.

And it's one of the main reasons that border crossings are up. According to CBP data released in October, there were 1.7 million people detained at the Southwest border during fiscal year 2021, which ended Sept. 30. This year marked the largest annual total for apprehensions in Border Patrol history. That's in part because the nature of the rapid Title 42 expulsions make it easier for people to try to immediately cross again.

Here's why Title 42 matters, and what you need to know.

What is Title 42?

is a public health and welfare statute enacted in 1944 that gave the U.S. surgeon general the authority - later transferred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - to determine whether communicable disease in a foreign country poses a serious danger of spreading in the U.S., either by people or property entering the country.

If the CDC finds that a disease does pose a threat, it can, with approval from the president, temporarily prohibit them from entering the country to avert danger.

That's just what it did at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, amid surging deaths from disease, the Trump administration put forward a novel interpretation of Title 42: U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents could immediately remove anyone entering the country without authorization to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. This new interpretation of policy closed the border to nonessential travel in the "interest of public health."

But it also superseded all other U.S. laws, including statutes that grant migrants the right to seek asylum; prevent the persecuted from being returned to countries where they would face threats, harm or torture; and protect unaccompanied children vulnerable to being trafficked.

Before the Trump administration, migrants who made it to the U.S. and sought asylum or other humanitarian protections were detained or released into the country pending a final immigration court decision, which could take years amid a growing backlog of cases.

Under Title 42, migrants do not even receive a formal order of deportation. Instead, agents take migrants' biometric information and perform a cursory health check for COVID-19 symptoms - a process that can take roughly - before returning them to Mexico (if they are from Mexico or Central America). If they are from anywhere else, they are typically flown back there.

How did we get here?

The Title 42 policy appears to have been first applied by the CDC under pressure from former Vice President Mike Pence, and from Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide who long sought to restrict immigration. Experts at the CDC objected, saying the policy would do little to stanch the spread of the coronavirus and that it could not be justified in the name of public health. Pence ordered the CDC's director to use the agency's emergency powers to effectively seal the U.S. borders anyway.

Advocacy groups including the ACLU last year sued the Trump administration over its use of Title 42. When President Biden began his term in January, the new administration continued the policy, saying it is "necessary to limit the spread of the coronavirus."

After 16,000 children who were traveling without a parent had been expelled from the U.S. under Title 42, the Biden administration exempted unaccompanied minors from the policy. Parents traveling with their children and single adults are still officially blocked from entering the country or are quickly expelled. But children traveling with extended family members, such as grandparents, are not considered family units, meaning they can be separated at the border with the children labeled as unaccompanied minors and allowed to enter.

Advocates expected the president to rescind the order over the summer, as COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. But then the Delta variant hit.

What's the controversy?

Legal experts say Title 42 is one of the most controversial and restrictive immigration policies ever enacted. When the Trump administration implemented Title 42, lawmakers including then-Sen. Kamala Harris called it an unconstitutional "executive power grab." Immigrant advocates broadly expected Biden to do away with enforcement of the measure when he took office.

Public health experts say people who refuse to get vaccinated - not migrants - are driving the increase of infections in the U.S. Last month, former CDC officials wrote a letter to the Biden administration condemning the current policy as "scientifically baseless and politically motivated." They said that measures including masking, social distancing, quarantine and vaccination effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said Oct. 3 on CNN that immigrants are "absolutely not" a driving force of COVID-19. Asked about Title 42, Fauci said, "My feeling has always been that focusing on immigrants, expelling them ... is not the solution to an outbreak."

The Department of Homeland Security announced that some restrictions on non-essential travel at land ports of entry will be lifted in November, allowing vaccinated people to enter the U.S. from Canada and Mexico. Asked how officials could justify continuing Title 42 while ending restrictions at ports of entry, a senior Biden administration official said that two different populations are at issue - those entering with prior authorization and those entering without.

The administration continues to maintain that the Title 42 restrictions protect the migrants themselves, the DHS workforce and local communities.

How is Title 42 different from 'Remain in Mexico'?

Sometimes the Title 42 policy is confused with another Trump administration policy known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, more commonly referred to as "Remain in Mexico." Under that 2019 policy, U.S. immigration officers direct migrants from countries other than Mexico to stay there while their cases weave through the immigration court system.

The program has resulted in thousands of migrants living in squalid tent encampments on the Mexican side of the border in some of the world's most dangerous cities. But it still gives migrants the chance to apply for asylum, albeit from outside the U.S.

Title 42 prevents them from seeking humanitarian protections at all.

Border authorities under the Trump administration largely stopped using Migrant Protection program at the beginning of the pandemic in favor of Title 42, and Biden officially ended the policy soon after taking office. But a federal court in Texas ruled that he must restart it. The Supreme Court later upheld that decision.

DHS said in September that it is still committed to ending the policy in a manner that addresses the court's concerns. In the meantime, officials are preparing to reimplement the policy in mid-November as long as the Mexican government agrees to once again accept asylum seekers with pending cases.

How is Title 42 working?

Among more than 1.7 million people detained by CBP at the Southwest border during fiscal year 2021, 61% were expelled under Title 42, according to CBP data released Friday. But those rapid expulsions caused a significant increase in repeated crossing attempts by migrants returned to Mexico, inflating the number of individuals encountered. In recent months, including September, upwards of a quarter of the arrests were by people who had previously been turned back within the same year.

While migrants can't seek asylum under Title 42, they can still be screened under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Just 272, or 8%, passed their initial screenings. These screenings, in which migrants must prove that they are likely to be tortured if they are expelled, are more difficult to pass than traditional asylum interviews.

Federal officials rely on Mexico to receive migrants expelled from the U.S. under Title 42 who are from Central America, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Many migrants who are refused by Mexico and cannot be immediately expelled are held in detention while they await a longer deportation process.

Early this year, the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, started refusing to accept families with young children. Since then, CBP has transferred some migrants to other Mexican border cities. But most families encountered near there are now sent to U.S. detention centers or released in Texas. Thousands of others have been flown to southern Mexico and then expelled by the Mexican government to Guatemala or Honduras.

Where does the legal battle stand?

The CDC issued an order in August keeping Title 42 in place. Early this month the agency completed another assessment and determined it continues to be necessary.

Last month, in response to the ACLU's lawsuit, a U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C., found that migrant families subjected to Title 42 "face real threats of violence and persecution" and are deprived of statutory rights to seek protection in the U.S. The judge also found that, while Title 42 grants the government the authority to turn away people seeking to enter the country, it does not permit expulsions of people already on U.S. soil.

Justice Department lawyers argued in a court filing afterward that halting Title 42 would require the government to detain people for immigration processing "in facilities that are not equipped for physical distancing, quarantine, or isolation at the best of times, and that are now substantially over their COVID-restricted capacity." A federal appellate court later temporarily granted the Biden administration permission to continue the use of Title 42 to quickly expel migrants with children stopped along the U.S. border.

Former CDC officials say that most asylum seekers don't have to be held in detention for health reasons, and that transferring detainees between facilities, as is often done before deporting them, increases the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

The nonprofit group Human Rights First has tracked at least 7,647 kidnappings, rapes and other attacks on people expelled or blocked at the U.S.-Mexico border since Biden took office, including multiple children raped at tent encampments in Tijuana and Reynosa, in the Rio Grande Valley.

Though it's still early, the September order by the appellate court offers an indication of how it could ultimately rule. If the Biden administration wins its appeal, it could continue to use Title 42 for immigration enforcement. But even if it loses, the administration could still appeal to the Supreme Court, where a conservative majority might be inclined to side with federal officials.

The CDC's next 60-day assessment of the policy is Dec. 2.
Times staff writer Molly O'Toole contributed to this report.

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Title 42 explained: The obscure public health policy at the center of a U.S. border fight

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At the center of today's most heated immigration debate is a decades-old health statute dusted off by the Trump administration that is reshaping U.S. policy at the border. Citing the threat of COVID-19, the U.S. government has over the last year and a half carried out nearly expulsions of migrants at the border without offering them the opportunity to request asylum or other humanitarian protections.

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Temporary Protected Status- Kelly Garcia

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Temporary Protected Status- Kelly Garcia

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Facts:
- Boosting remittances are an advantage provided with TPS
- TPS- designated countries gain billions of dollars in remittances
- Holders serve as a lifeline for their families back home
- They can help families meet their basic needs, fund recovery efforts, and build economic security
- Granting TPS will help improve living conditions and boost economic situations in affected countries
- As of March 2021, about 320,000 immigrants in the US from 10 countries have TPS
- About 481,980 new individuals are eligible to apply for TPS status
- The status allows recipients to apply for work permits and immigrants are able to find stable jobs to help their families in their home countries
- Recipients pay $2.3 billion in federal taxes and $1.3 billion in state and local taxes

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Remittances From TPS Holders Improve the Lives of Families Abroad

Download the PDF here.

"I've been sending my mom money since I arrived in this country 20 years ago," said Jesus Perlera, from El Salvador, in an interview with The New York Times, adding that he will not stop helping his mother and disabled brother even if his earnings fall.

Remittances, or money immigrants send to their families back home, can be instrumental in lifting their families out of poverty; spurring investment in education, health care, entrepreneurial activities; and even affecting their decision to migrate. Research shows that remittances play a significant role in Latin American countries. For example, remittances make up anywhere from 14 to 24 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador-also known as the Northern Triangle of Central America-with most remittances coming from individuals in the United States. Furthermore, remittances to Latin American countries are substantially larger than foreign aid and go directly to people, allowing them to spend on what they need most. It is no surprise, then, that remittances serve as a lifeline for many families in the region who have come to rely on this source of income to pay for basic needs, ranging from food and medicine to education and health care.

There is intense pressure for people in Central America to migrate north, with communities threatened by gang violence, food insecurity, political instability, and more frequent and catastrophic natural disasters that are only likely to get worse every year as a result of climate change.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been tasked by President Joe Biden to work with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico to address the root causes of migration. While the administration pursues different strategies to bring stability in the region, it should not overlook the power of remittances in improving the lives of people. Instead, the administration should view remittances, along with foreign aid and targeted programs, as an important part of an overall strategy to deal with these migration pressures. Existing policy options-such as designating eligible countries for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which would boost remittances to these countries-should also be considered for the advantages they provide.

In 2020, the devastation caused by twin hurricanes Eta and Iota in some Central American countries met the statutory requirements for granting TPS. In December of that year, the Center for American Progress called on the incoming Biden administration to exercise its authority to designate, or redesignate, TPS for the affected countries: El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. However, the administration has yet to act on this issue.

It is not a novel strategy to grant TPS to help improve living conditions and boost economic situations in affected countries. When designating Haiti for TPS after the 2010 earthquake, the United States acknowledged that it had sought to "leverage the power of remittances in enabling economic growth in Haiti." With TPS, thousands of Haitians in the United States can work and send money back home quickly. Dilip Ratha, head of the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD) and lead economist for Migration and Remittances at the World Bank, estimated at the time that if Haiti were designated for TPS and extended, more than a billion dollars in remittances would flow into the country over three years. As of March 2021, there were approximately 320,000 immigrants in the United States from 10 countries who have TPS; among this pool of immigrants, nearly 95 percent are from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti. Recently, six countries received new designations or redesignations-Burma, Haiti, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen-and, together, there are an estimated 481,980 new individuals eligible to apply for the TPS status.
Table 1
Since TPS designations allow recipients to apply for work permits, they give immigrants an opportunity to find stable jobs, make substantial contributions to the United States, and help their families in their home countries. CAP recently estimated that in the United States, TPS holders from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti-the three countries with the most recipients-pay $2.3 billion in federal taxes and $1.3 billion in state and local taxes annually, with more than $10.1 billion in spending power.

New designations and redesignations of countries that clearly meet the conditions for TPS will help prevent countries that are already facing severe issues from experiencing further destabilization. With TPS designations, these countries would not have to integrate hundreds of thousands of people coming back home and would likely see more remittances from newly minted TPS holders who are working and getting better jobs. These remittances can be a significant source of income for families in troubled situations made worse by temporary and devastating conditions. Furthermore, a CAP study shows there is empirical evidence that TPS is not a driver of irregular migration to the United States. The issues facing the Central American region require a multifaceted response, and designating and redesignating countries for TPS should be part of this strategy.

While this issue brief focuses on Central America, the arguments are equally true for other countries in need of TPS in Africa and Asia.

Pressures for migration in the Americas and current U.S. responses

As the Biden-Harris administration continues to try to manage the migration challenges at the U.S. southern border, it is also working well beyond the border to attempt to address the underlying drivers of migration in the Americas. Failed governance, inadequate health care, lack of access to proper education, scarce economic opportunities, weak justice systems, and citizen insecurity are often among the root causes that force people to leave their homes out of desperation-particularly from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America. Although the United States has traditionally provided significant resources to support the region's development through economic prosperity and security initiatives-critical initiatives that were gutted under the previous administration-such support has produced mixed results and has been incommensurate to the scale of the challenge. For example, the United States provided Guatemala with more than $1.6 billion in aid over the past 10 years, yet poverty rates have risen, malnutrition persists throughout the country, corruption remains rampant, and more unaccompanied children come to the United States from Guatemala than from anywhere else in the world.

For example, two back-to-back Category 4 hurricanes-Eta and Iota-hit Central America in November 2020, bringing with them high winds, landslides, mudslides, and flooding. An estimated 6.8 million people were affected and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their home communities. Families lost their homes, belongings, and livelihoods, making the prospect of seeking refuge or better opportunities abroad that much more of a necessity. In the aftermath of Eta and Iota, the U.S. government provided humanitarian and financial assistance, along with logistical support, to aid recovery and rebuilding efforts across the region. However, such a response is not enough considering that the devastating impacts of natural disasters are not new to Central America; the Biden administration must also consider designating or redesignating the affected countries-El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala-for TPS.

The efforts of the Biden-Harris administration are a step in the right direction, and while it is essential to continue funding citizen security and economic prosperity initiatives in the region in order to improve on-the-ground conditions for Central Americans, U.S. policymakers must also continue to consider how the slow onset effects of climate change will influence migration outflows from the Americas going forward. Traditional U.S. foreign assistance will not be a cure-all solution to the challenges facing the region; however, U.S. policymakers have an opportunity to mitigate migration pressures through principled, well-resourced, and coordinated efforts that actively seek to enhance partner capacity and accommodate migrant flows both in the United States and throughout the Americas. CAP has previously advocated for the U.S. government to support a regional approach to migration that allows for the fair, safe, and humane movement of people in the Americas and that upholds legal obligations to refugees seeking asylum in the United States.

TPS should also have a larger role among the policy tools in the overall U.S. strategy to help tackle both root and acute causes of migration in the Central American region. TPS-designated countries gain from billions of dollars in remittances, which are known to alleviate some of the same issues that force people to leave their homes in the first place.

Remittances have a large economic impact on Central American countries

Approximately 200,000 Salvadorans and 60,000 Hondurans have TPS currently, making up 80 percent of total TPS holders in the United States. This is about 14 percent of the 1.4 million foreign-born Salvadorans and 8 percent of the 745,838 foreign-born Hondurans in the United States. According to a 2017 survey of Salvadoran and Honduran TPS holders-conducted by the University of Kansas' Center for Migration Research-these individuals have exceptionally high labor force participation rates, with nearly 90 percent reporting that they were employed. In comparison, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the average civilian labor force participation rate in 2017 was 62.9 percent, with a slightly higher 66 percent labor force participation rate for the foreign-born population.

The high levels of labor participation among TPS holders may mean that more people are able to send money back home to support their families. Among the respondents of the 2017 survey, 77 percent of TPS holders sent an average of 9.5 percent of their monthly earnings back home. Another recent study on El Salvador reported that Salvadorans with TPS send 6 percent more funds back than do undocumented workers, and their transfers were estimated to be $620 million per year. This difference in remittances may be attributable to the increase in income that immigrants experience after they get work authorization.

The money received by families back home can have major impacts on their day-to-day lives, from providing economic stability to helping them afford basic services such as education and health care. Research on their macroeconomic impact find that, while differences among countries exist, remittances reduce poverty, lower income inequality, and boost economic growth in the receiving countries. For example, a 2005 study found that a 10 percent increase in per capita official international remittances leads to a 3.5 percent decline in the share of people living in poverty. Another study found that remittances in Latin American and Caribbean countries have decreased poverty and inequality and increased growth. Poverty is one of the main reasons people decide to migrate, along with the existence of large diasporas in the host country; better access to health care systems; and the ability to send back money to insure against uncertainties at home. In addition, results from two surveys of Hondurans and Guatemalans find that not receiving remittances increases the probability of migration. These findings suggest that remittances could be a sustainable source of income for many and could potentially be a factor that prevents them from leaving their homes.

Remittances are a lifeline for communities across TPS-designated countries

Remittances from TPS holders often serve as a lifeline for their families back home. This source of funding is protected from the ups and downs of personal circumstances or larger country situations, and most importantly, it does not go through government channels; recipients are free to use this cash in ways that best meet their needs.

In another example, NPR reported that after a 2001 earthquake hit El Salvador, people such as Edyt Mendoza de Urqilla and their families, who were already struggling, lost their homes. But since the United States granted TPS to Salvadorans already living in the country, Mendoza de Urqilla's eldest son was able to get TPS and work authorization and can now send money back home to help his family. With that money, Mendoza de Urqilla rebuilt her house and paid off her debts. With her husband now retired, the monthly money that her son sends has been keeping the family afloat.

Stories like these are many. They illustrate the potential that remittances may have to help families who are facing multidimensional challenges in not just countries in Central America but all over the world.

Conclusion

The Biden-Harris administration has rightly renewed the United States' commitment to tackle the root and acute causes of migration, especially in Central American countries. As it continues to address this issue, the administration should view TPS as yet another tool to add to its overall strategy. The contributions of TPS holders to the U.S. economy are well-documented, and research shows that these contributions have far-reaching consequences beyond the United States. Indeed, much of these remittances end up going to those immigrants' families in Central American countries.
Silva Mathema is an associate director for policy on the Immigration Policy team at the Center for American Progress. Joel Martinez is the Mexico policy analyst for National Security and International Policy at the Center.
In addition to using TPS designations for eligible countries to protect those nationals residing in the United States and help those countries stay stable during challenging times, the U.S. government should also consider the additional, undeniable advantages of granting TPS that comes from remittances TPS holders send directly to their families. Through remittances, TPS holders can help families meet their basic needs, fund recovery efforts, and build economic security.

Endnotes

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Temporary Protected Status Is Critical To Tackling the Root Causes of Migration in the Americas - Center for American Progress

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Remittances From TPS Holders Improve the Lives of Families Abroad Download the PDF here. "I've been sending my mom money since I arrived in this country 20 years ago," said Jesus Perlera, from El Salvador, in an interview with The New York Times, adding that he will not stop helping his mother and disabled brother even if his earnings fall.

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Zeline Chacon
Facts:
- Before trump took office, there were 654 miles of barrier along the southern border, including 354 miles of pedestrian barricades and 300 miles of anti-vehicle fencing.
- The southern border now has 669 miles of "primary barrier" and 65 miles of "secondary barrier," according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
- The Supreme Court has allowed barrier construction using the funds to continue pending the appeals process. It will hear a challenge by President Trump's administration against the lower courts' decision next year.

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Building a "big, beautiful wall" between the US and Mexico was the signature promise of President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign. A concrete barrier, he said, would serve to stop what he described as a flow of illegal immigrants and drugs over the border.

But what actually happened to the wall? How much of it has been built? And how effective has it been?

1. How much 'new wall' Trump has built is up for debate

Any calculation of the miles of new wall constructed by Mr Trump and his administration depends very much on the definition of the words "new" and "wall".

Before he took office, there were 654 miles (just over 1,000km) of barrier along the southern border - made up of 354 miles of barricades to stop pedestrians and 300 miles of anti-vehicle fencing.

Now, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in its 6 October status report, the southern border has 669 miles of "primary barrier" - the first structure people heading from Mexico to the US will encounter - and 65 miles of "secondary barrier" - which usually runs behind the primary structure as a further obstacle.

This means that in areas where no barricades existed before, they have built 15 miles of new, primary barrier or "border wall system", as it is called by CBP.

​​About a further 350 miles of barrier has been built, according to CBP, made up of replacement structures and some new secondary barrier.

More is planned, too, with 378 miles of new and replacement barrier either under construction or in the "pre-construction phase". Less than half of this will be in locations where no barriers currently exist, according to CBP.

However, Mr Trump himself doesn't make a distinction between these new stretches of barrier and replacement structures, regarding both as new wall.

This is because, he says, replacements involve "complete demolition and rebuilding of old and worthless barriers".

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And he regards the progress made so far as a success.

"My administration has done more than any administration in history to secure our southern border," Mr Trump said in June during a visit to the wall.

But what Mr Trump has actually built is far from what he promised at the start of his 2016 election campaign, when he pledged to build a concrete wall along the border's entire 2,000-mile length.

He later clarified that it would cover only half of that. And by the time of his State of the Union address in February this year, his pledge had been reduced to "substantially more than 500 miles" by January 2021.

Mr Trump is still short of that target - even if you include all the new, replacement and secondary barriers erected so far.

Yet how much more will be built is uncertain, with Democratic rival presidential candidate Joe Biden saying that, while he would not tear down the barrier Mr Trump has built, he would not expand it further.

2. Most of the wall isn't 'wall' at all

As well as scaling back his ambitions for the length of the border barrier, Mr Trump has also changed his view of what constitutes a wall.

Throughout his 2016 election campaign, when he described it, he talked about concrete.

But once elected, he began referring to a barrier made of steel, which would enable border agents to see through it.

And what has been built so far is mostly such steel fencing.

Specifically, much of the current wave of construction is 18-30ft (5.4-9m) reinforced bollard fencing, according to a report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

"It poses a formidable barrier, but it is not the high, thick masonry structure that most dictionaries term a 'wall'," the report states.

However, the report adds that while the new barriers may not be made of concrete and in many cases replace existing structures, they do pose "a new obstacle that changes the calculus of those attempting to cross the border between ports of entry".

Having said that, although Mr Trump's barriers are not themselves made of concrete, they have been constructed using a significant amount of it, according to CBP.

Some 774,000 cubic yards (592,000 cubic metres) of concrete have been used in construction so far, alongside 539,000 tonnes of steel.

3. How it's being paid for remains controversial

Despite Mr Trump's pledge on the campaign trail in 2016 to get Mexico to pay for the wall, it is the US government that has spent billions of dollars to expand and reconstruct it.

Just over $5bn (£3.9bn) in funding has come via traditional means through the CBP, but Mr Trump has also ordered almost $10bn in Department of Defense (DoD) funding to be diverted - a move that has sparked legal action.

Back in 2019, after his request for a further $5.7bn for the wall was rejected and Congress allotted only $1.4bn, Mr Trump declared border control a national emergency and used powers under the National Emergencies Act to move cash from DoD budgets.

Some $6.3bn of counter-drugs funding and £3.6bn of military construction funding has so far been diverted to the wall project, according to the CBP.

But Mr Trump's decision to bypass Congress in this way has triggered a number of legal challenges - one from a number of environmental groups, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, along with the states of California and New Mexico.

Two lower US courts have ruled in favour of these groups, concluding that the diversion of an amount of $2.5bn from DoD to construct barriers in California, New Mexico and Arizona was unlawful.

However, the Supreme Court - the highest federal court in the US - has allowed barrier construction using the funds to continue pending the appeals process. It will hear a challenge by President Trump's administration against the lower courts' decision next year.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the House of Representatives have also launched separate legal action.

4. Illegal crossings appear to have fallen this year

Mr Trump made reducing illegal immigration a top priority of his administration and it has been a key part of his re-election campaign.

The latest figures suggest the number of migrants apprehended at the southern border this year have fallen after doubling between 2018 and 2019.

In particular, the number of children and those travelling in family groups apprehended at the border has dropped significantly in the 12 months to October, compared with the previous year.

How much this fall in numbers is down to the new barriers is unclear, though, and immigration experts say the drop is likely to be the result of the deterrent effect of a whole raft of anti-immigration measures introduced by Mr Trump's administration rather than the barrier alone.

Those fleeing violence or persecution to the US have found asylum rules tightened, been forced to wait in camps for long periods as their cases are determined and come up against new limits on the number of refugees accepted into the country.

The administration has also adopted emergency procedures during the coronavirus pandemic that allow agents to expel those crossing the border back to Mexico, bypassing normal immigration and asylum proceedings.

"Any effect that the physical wall has had in reducing unauthorised migration has paled in comparison to the administration's bureaucratic wall," says Sarah Pierce, US immigration policy analyst at the independent Migration Policy Institute.

A series of "interlocking policies" have "significantly reduced unauthorised arrivals", she told the BBC.

But although figures for detentions at the border are likely to have dropped for the year as a whole compared with 2019, monthly figures have been rising since the spring and reached a 13-month high in September.

This is driven partly by single adults from Mexico who have been trying to enter the US repeatedly, according to CBP figures. Data shows the "recidivism rate" - the number of repeat crossers - has risen by 37% since the end of March.

Mark Morgan, CBP's acting commissioner, has suggested worsening economic conditions due to the coronavirus pandemic in Mexico and further afield could be to blame.

5. A key migrant camp is emptying

Thousands who have made the journey to the southern US border have found refuge in temporary border communities - often in shanty towns with little infrastructure or resources and vulnerable to pressure from violent organised-crime gangs.

According to Human Rights Watch, these migrants are under threat from criminal organisations which kidnap them on the assumption that they have relatives in the US who could be extorted for money.

In the town of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, hundreds of people set up one such camp in 2018 near the entry point, in the scrubland on the banks of the Rio Grande.

By the start of this year, the camp had around 3,500 people living in tents - men, women, and children from across Central and South America and beyond. Another 10,000 asylum seekers are thought to be living elsewhere in the city.

Charities such as the World Food Kitchen, the Dignity Village collective and Global Response Management (GRM) provide food, tents, clothing and medical care to those living in the camp, where around 50% of residents are under the age of 15.

But Andrea Leiner, director of strategic planning for GRM, says coronavirus and July's Hurricane Hanna have had dire consequences.

Coronavirus restrictions have meant the border has been closed for all but essential travel and immigration hearings have been postponed.

Hurricane Hanna not only brought floods to the camp but also caused an infestation of rats, snakes and mosquitoes, forcing many residents to flee.

Ms Leiner says the repeated blows of plague, famine, and hurricane, on top of the legal restrictions, have drained people of hope.

"These people have nowhere to go. They can't go home - they will be killed if they go home - and they can't get into the US, so they are stuck in this purgatory right now and we don't see that ending any time soon," she says.

6. The barrier is unlikely to stop most kinds of drugs coming into the US

Mr Trump has claimed in the past that 90% of heroin in the US comes across the southern border and that a wall would help the fight against drugs.

However strengthening and extending the border barrier is unlikely to do much to reduce illegal drugs - such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine - because most come through established border checkpoints, known as ports of entry.

While the majority of the heroin in the US does come from Mexico, the Drug Enforcement Administration says most of it is hidden in privately owned vehicles or transporter lorries, mixed with other goods, and smuggled through legal entry points.

CBP figures for drugs - excluding marijuana - seized on the southern border also show most come through ports of entry, although a report by the Congressional Research Service does state that border barriers can serve to push people to cross in places where they are more likely to be "detected, intercepted, and detained".

Rodney Scott, chief of the US Border Patrol, agrees - and gives the example of San Diego, where he says cartel lorries used to drive across the border "three or four at a time on an almost daily basis, with high-speed pursuits throughout town".

"Those stopped immediately with the border wall system, " he says. "It does not mean cartels will stop smuggling drugs - now we're going to deal with tunnels and other aspects - but it pushed that threat, the daily life-and-death threat for kids waiting for a school bus near the border, out of those areas."

Smugglers also appear increasingly to be using boats to try to land drugs on the beaches of southern California - with the numbers intercepted by CBP's air and marine operations jumping 82% last year.

Marijuana is the most trafficked drug, with more than 227 tonnes seized on the southern border this year. It is also the drug most likely to be smuggled in areas away from the border checkpoints.

Traffickers regularly use underground tunnels to smuggle tonnes of marijuana, mainly in the California and Arizona stretches of the border.

Design by Zoe Bartholomew and Gerry Fletcher

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Trump wall: How much has he actually built?

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What happened to President Trump's long-promised wall? How much of it got built? And how effective has it been?

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-This Policy was formerly named Migrant Protection Protocols.
-Biden Ended this policy when he took office, he described it as "inhumane".
- Two states, Texas and Missouri, sued the Biden Administration over this policy suspension in April. In August, a federal judge in Texas ordered for the policy to be reinstated "pending the outcome of the suit".
-Biden Administration fought in the Appeals court and the Supreme Court but ultimately had to comply with the order.
-Admin. Reinstated Revised version of policy to give migrants a court date within six months of filing and will go to one of ten courts in south Texas.
-Mexico will be able to amend the policy.
-Temporary immigration hearing centers will be reestablished.
-Previously large asylum camps on the Mexican side of the border were prone to assault, murder, rape, and kidnapping. With hundreds being reported.

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Biden administration plans to restart Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy at border

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Biden had ended “Remain in Mexico,” calling it inhumane because of the violence migrant asylum-seekers faced while waiting in Mexico for court dates.

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"The Wall" that Donald Trump created is a 2,000 mile border going all across Mexico. The construction of The Wall was $2 billion dollars. Even thought The Wall is 2,000 miles long only 650 miles of it are fenced.

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The Wall - An in-depth examination of Donald Trump's border wall

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A USA TODAY NETWORK special report examines the impact of Trump's proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, exploring every foot of the 2,000-mile boundary.

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FACTS:
- 53,500 Afghan evacuees are at 8 military bases across the U.S
-Half of them are kids
-Most of them have been there for weeks awaiting resettlement
-Most have completed the screenings to enter the U.S but there are not sufficient funds nor is there sufficient time to process all of the requests quick enough
-Trump's additional screening protocols and slashing of refugee camps have significantly affected the progress
- More Afghans are scheduled to arrive from foreign military bases within the next few weeks
-Americans are doing what they can to donate supplies, clothing and even airline miles to help refugees

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One set of clothes took Enayatullah Sadat from Nimroz province, in the southwest of Afghanistan, to Fort Pickett, a United States military base in Blackstone, Virginia.

He wore the outfit in Nimroz, after he delivered the last drips of intel to the Afghan Air Force on the Taliban's position. He wore it as he drove toward Kabul on roads blasted by IEDs. He wore the outfit for the five days it took him to fight his way inside the Hamid Karzai International Airport. He wore it on his flight to Qatar, and then started to feel shy about the way he might smell on another crowded flight to Washington, DC. He wore it when he waited for hours in line for his first meal at Fort Pickett. Another day, about 15 in total, in the same clothes: a perahan tunban,traditional Afghan clothes consisting of a long dress shirt and trousers, and reddish sandals, gray foam leaking from the heel.

"That's too hard for a person," he said, a little more than a month after his evacuation. "If you take everything from him in a few minutes, if a person worked for eight years or six years, gets everything for his family, and you leave it behind, and you just come out by one pair of clothes, that's hard. That's really hard."

Sadat, a former linguist for the US and British governments, is one of about 53,500 Afghan evacuees staying at eight US military installations across the country. About half of them are children. Some have been there for weeks, and many may be there for weeks more. More people are still arriving, including about 3,000 currently living on bases overseas in Europe and the Middle East, according to recent data from the Department of Homeland Security.

Thousands are still navigating this limbo without a clear end date, living in barracks or outfitted tents, awaiting the resettlement process. They've completed the required screenings to be paroled into the US, but it is taking time to connect evacuees to resettlement services. Specifically, the benefits that come with it, things like money for travel and living expenses, and other supports, like job and language training.

An operation as big and as fast as the Afghanistan evacuation meant these bases had to adjust rapidly. That has meant adapting to serve more Afghan foods - more curried meat and yogurt, for example - and to procure essentials like diapers for children. Outside organizations and donations fill the gaps, but the need is huge: Groups are trying to help clothe the equivalent of small cities, or provide counseling services to people who escaped the traumas of war. It is a temporary situation that, after more than a month for some, has taken on an uncomfortable permanence.

There are roughly 7,200 evacuees living at Fort Pickett, in Virginia, where Sadat arrived on August 31 with his wife and their 5-year-old and 8-month-old children. When he first arrived, Sadat's family waited three hours for breakfast. In early October, they took trips to the medical services because his kids had a bad cough. He is studying for his truck driver's license, and Sadat talks to, and worries over, his family still in Afghanistan. He had to explain to his 5-year-old son why they are here, and why they can't leave, and why he can't see his grandfather in person.

A senior administration official working with Operation Allies Welcome and Afghan resettlement told Vox last week that the number of evacuees leaving bases has increased in recent weeks. But there are thousands still caught in an in-between place, out of Afghanistan but not yet fully in the United States.

The Afghan evacuation in August was a shock to the US immigration and resettlement system, a collection of federal programs and nonprofit organizations that had already been upended by the Trump administration.

Afghan evacuees are in this holding pattern for several reasons. There are the screenings and immigration procedures that have to play out, and when they do, they are met with a now hollowed-out US resettlement infrastructure that's struggling to keep up. All of this is happening for thousands of Afghans all at once.

The fall of the Afghan government happened more quickly than President Joe Biden's administration anticipated, leading to more than 124,000 people being airlifted out of Afghanistan by August 30. This meant the thing immigrant advocates and some lawmakers feared would happen happened. Evacuations of Afghan allies and at-risk Afghans that should have been expedited months earlier were condensed into two chaotic weeks.

The backlog of Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), the designation given to those who assisted the US government, added to the pressure. There were delays for years. President Donald Trump's administration slow-rolled the program. Pandemic closures added to the logjam. Congress and the Biden administration tried to ramp up the process, but those efforts to accelerate vetting fell short.

Typically, when people come as SIVs or refugees to the United States, they've already been screened. That happened for a few thousand SIVs who left Afghanistan this summer and quickly moved on to final destinations in the US. But the evacuation otherwise scrambled that process for those who were still in the SIV application process or who were applying (or eligible) for other types of priority programs.

Instead, evacuees went through background and security vetting immediately after leaving Kabul. They had to go through medical screenings (including for Covid-19), and a measles outbreak prompted a vaccination campaign that required officials to quarantine everyone for 21 days. Evacuees must also await work authorization and interviews for the resettlement process. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said DHS has "nearly completed" the work authorization adjudication process "for Afghans who have been paroled into the US and are awaiting relocation."

Among those still awaiting relocation are Humaira Rasuli, a human rights lawyer. She has been at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin since August 21, one of about 12,000 evacuees at the base.

Rasuli says she doesn't have any answers for when they might be resettled. "The process of how much time it will take to sort out our case, whether we will be able to leave the camp without losing some benefits, that process is unclear," she said.

Some of that uncertainty is tied to current challenges with the resettlement system. Trump slashed refugee caps but curtailed admissions even lower than those ceilings, in part by deliberately jamming up the process. With so few refugees coming into the US - and so little government funding because of that - more than 100 local resettlement offices closed during the Trump administration. Many had built relationships with local partners such as landlords, employers, and churches, which would help in the resettlement process. Those relationships have languished. "And so what we have is, very quickly, the arrival of tens upon tens of thousands of Afghans, and a decimated network needing to help them," said Jennifer Quigley, the senior director of government affairs at Human Rights First.

That strained resettlement system is compounded by existing problems, like the shortage of affordable housing. It is hard to find a home, harder still to find a landlord willing to rent to a family without any credit history.

The resettlement process isn't one-size-fits-all, either. Each arrival has different needs and different skills, and may already have connections in certain communities. "That is when the speed and flow of arrivals presents the challenge for some of the traditional ways that we've done resettlement. Normally, we have lead time for new arrivals," said Nazanin Ash, the CEO of Welcome.US, a nonprofit coalition helping to coordinate private sector support and donations for Operation Allies Welcome.

Congress passed a $6.3 billion aid package in the recent spending bill to assist in Afghan refugee resettlement. Advocates and officials say that money has expanded the capacity of these resettlement agencies, along with providing all Afghan evacuees benefits and services for up to a year. The funding had bipartisan support, though some conservative Republicans have tried to put limits on aid - which, if not successful this time, revealed the simmering anti-immigration backlash over these arrivals. Those politics could complicate resettlement efforts, especially when it comes to finding a permanent solution for Afghan refugees. The parole process that many Afghan evacuees were granted is not permanent, and, as it stands now, many may have to go through the asylum process, a system already woefully backlogged and broken.

Officials say the completion of screening processes and increased federal funding for resettlement is helping to move people off these bases at a much faster clip in recent weeks. According to the Department of Homeland Security, since August 17, more than 13,000 Afghans, American citizens, and legal permanent residents have left these military bases, nearly 10,000 of whom were resettled in new communities by agencies.

Still, Rasuli and many others are still waiting. Sadat, the linguist, wants to get his family to Colorado. A friend he grew up with in Afghanistan is headed there, and he wants to be near someone he trusts. His old army colleagues have set up a GoFundMe to try to help him start his new life. It has raised a little more than $2,300.

In the rush to get out of Afghanistan, people took what they could in a backpack or duffle, and left the rest behind. That meant houses and apartments they could not sell back in Afghanistan, money in a bank they could not access. The $800 or so Sadat brought with him from Afghanistan is now gone. His friend sent him a care package of basics like socks, cold medicine, and a bottle for the baby. It included new sandals for Sadat, to replace his torn-up ones.

The needs at the military bases were, and in a lot of ways still are, enormous.

"Part of the issue with what we're experiencing right now is that it happened so quickly, that they were not prepared to meet all of the humanitarian needs of the population," Quigley, of Human Rights First, said. Operation Allies Welcome is a multi-agency effort, with different parts of government covering different elements of the operation, and that patchwork meant some things fell through the cracks. "For instance, baby bottles," Quigley added. "You've got women who are in the third trimester, they're going to have newborns soon."

A spokesperson with the Department of Defense said many of these contracts were brand new, and so it took time to make adjustments as officials more clearly understood the evacuees' needs. The Pentagon now has contracts for diapers and formula.

The food also required some adjustments. Each base is different, but Afghans I spoke to said in the days after the arrival, there was a chaotic rush for food, with lines lasting hours. In early September, Hamed Ahmadi, who arrived at the Fort Bliss Doña Ana Complex in New Mexico on August 27, tweeted a picture of his meal there: two skinny pieces of meat and a few chunks of fruit.

Ahmadi's viral food tweet got him noticed online by right-wing trolls, but also by base officials, who reached out to him and asked him about the food situation, and asked if he might be willing to help them collect feedback from those staying at the base.

Ahmadi formed a team of eight volunteers who went around his part of the camp - the whole base is currently hosting about 8,600 people - and asked people what they needed. "We are a bridge between the officials here and the Afghans," he said. The food improved at Fort Bliss, Ahmadi said, with more things Afghans liked. That feedback loop existed across the different bases, too; again, an adjustment process that also involved contracting for different foods. More rice instead of potatoes, hard-boiled eggs instead of scrambled.

Ahmadi said recently, as the weather was getting colder, he and the volunteers were trying to get warmer clothes for the residents. Sikandar Khan and his organization, Global Emergency Response and Assistance, are helping at Joint Base McGuire Dix Lakehurst in New Jersey, where about 10,900 evacuees are staying. He said they try to make sure people there have enough of the basics - shoes, clothes, blankets, jackets. Recently, his group dropped off a shipment of 50,000 hoodies.

Imam Ammar Amonette, who leads the Islamic Center of Virginia, said his congregation helped donate electric tea kettles to Afghans at bases in Virginia. Judy Deiwert volunteers with Team Rubicon at Camp Atterbury, in Indiana, where she sorted through donations. "It's a never-ending job," she said. They have to go through everything to make sure it's in good condition and culturally appropriate. She recalled that the base received a shipment of crop tops and ripped jeans; Deiwert said it all went to Goodwill instead.

This reliance on outside support, officials and experts said, isn't really that unusual. "Refugee resettlement has always been a public-private partnership," Ash, of Welcome.US, said.

Still, evacuees told me it can sometimes be hard to get supplies. The exchanges on the base can be pricey if you need something in a pinch. Some people are a bit better off, or have friends or family in the US that can send them supplies. Rasuli said you can see the divide; she is one of the lucky ones with an electric tea kettle, and so she lets others borrow hers for a few hours a night.

Lori Joundi, who also volunteers at Camp Atterbury, told me everyone - volunteers, officials and staff on the bases - is working so hard. She is helping to raise donations, and said many from the Muslim community in the area, and beyond, are helping however they can. "There's been a lot of support, it's just that because of the number of people and the enormity of all of their needs - I don't want to call it a scarcity problem. But you're basically taking care of an entire city, right? 6,000 is a small town."

Ahmadi told me the Afghans at Fort Bliss had this joke that they are all still in Afghanistan. From the base, this part of the country looks and feels a lot like Afghanistan - the mountains, the desert, the weather. It didn't feel as if they'd reached the United States yet.

That sense of suspension is hard to shake. The wait for more information about their statuses permeates everything; maybe today, or this week, we'll get a call.

In the meantime, they keep busy. Rasuli, the human rights lawyer, works all the time - calls, meetings, interviews. Her current organization, Women for Justice Afghanistan, is working with Islamic and sharia law scholars to counter the Taliban's interpretation of Islam when it comes to education and women's rights. Her 15-year-old son jokes that if she ever does get free time, she'll never know how to spend it.

The military bases are helping to provide services on base: school and art classes for kids, job training, cultural sensitivity training, and language classes for adults. Amonette helped coordinate with the base chaplains to host Friday prayers. Last month, Khan helped host a barbecue: 6,000 pounds of meat and chicken, kebabs for 10,000.

Still, day to day, it all gets pretty boring. You can go for walks, and read, and write, and watch Netflix if you have a computer. You can talk to your family at home, although that is a reminder of all the things that brought you here.

Abdul Basit Amal, a doctor who arrived at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, and his wife, Khadija Wazeen, who is also a doctor, tried to volunteer as interpreters in the medical clinic on the base. They couldn't treat patients, but they wanted to be useful. They helped for a couple of days, until they were told they couldn't work for free and would need work authorization. Basit Amal said officials helped expedite the forms, but by then, the clinic had all the translators they needed.

Wazeen says the hardest part of her journey happened at the eye doctor. She can't see distance, and brought two pairs of her glasses from Afghanistan. She lost one pair, the other broke. The clinic at the military base first gave her tape, but about a week later, she learned she had an appointment with an optician off the base. She and her husband, escorted by a soldier, went to an eye doctor in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The cheapest frames were $25. They didn't have the money. Another customer overheard and offered to buy them. When the women went to pay, Wazeen cried. "'I was like, 'I don't want this. I can wait.' But she said, 'You know, we're helping each other one way or the other.'"

Wazeen has the black-framed glasses. "One day you're something," she said, "and the other day you're someone else."

These are the kind of negotiations you do after you've been cleaved from your career and your family and your country in a matter of days. "You're a doctor, you're a professional person, you're an educated person," Basit Amal said. "You know everything about your field and your work, and you have years [of] experience, and now you just leave everything you've ever known and you just start your life from zero, from scratch."

Ahmadi, at Fort Bliss, blogged and worked in peace-building in Afghanistan. He was applying for a Fulbright scholarship. "I didn't want to come like this," he said. "I wanted to come as a student, and study in a very prestigious school in the United States, and then I'd graduate, go back to Afghanistan to work."

When he tweeted about the food in Fort Bliss, he was accused of being " ungrateful," in right-wing media. He is grateful, he said, but you have to understand what it feels like when you're having to start your life from zero. "I wanted to come in the way that I wanted to come," he said.

Going back to Afghanistan is impossible, at least for now, and so the only thing to focus on is this uncertain future in America. Officials, again, said that the pace of resettlement is increasing, and Afghans I have spoken to have left bases in the past few weeks. Even as people leave, more evacuees are still arriving from overseas. These military bases may be a landing pad for Afghan evacuees well into 2022.

Ahmadi left Fort Bliss after more than 40 days on the base, arriving two weeks ago in Silver Spring, Maryland. Basit Amal and Wazeen left Holloman after 45 days. They are staying with a friend in Apex, North Carolina, as they await placement in permanent housing. It was, Basit Amal said, the first time they slept well in three months.

Update, October 28, 12:30 pm: This story has been updated with the most recent figures from the Department of Homeland Security.

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Why thousands of Afghans are still on US military bases

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One set of clothes took Enayatullah Sadat from Nimroz province, in the southwest of Afghanistan, to Fort Pickett, a United States military base in Blackstone, Virginia. He wore the outfit in Nimroz, after he delivered the last drips of intel to the Afghan Air Force on the Taliban's position.

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https://www.usatoday.com/border-wall/

Facts

When discussing the presidency of former President Donald Trump. Three words got his campaign started: “Build the Wall.” When looking back, the wall was a tremendous task. Not only for construction but also it would cost lots of money. This alone was a huge moment that a lot of interviewers questioned many migrants and smugglers. The Wall is 2,000 miles long which shows the struggle and results of the former president's border. Texas contributed half of the border and it has no fence. It is an open border. The border itself also runs in the center of the Rio Grande. In order to calculate the impact that could happen. It was used in the records of the state and received property from all thirteen counties of Texas with the border involved. Practically, most of the land in Texas is privately owned which alone can confuse the actions of building a wall in the state of Texas. A handful of the walls would be on land and would already be owned by the government. However, the number 4,900 of property has given a sense of cost and attacks that the government may encounter. Around 300 cursed cases were against landowners. Approximately the cases that were settled were for as much as 100 dollars. Which made the US pay 5 million dollars for 6 grounds. However, some have not settled. This fall Congress is trying to do the funding for the wall in Texas. Rather, if they supported the president or not. Republicans are willing to advocate for the plan. Today, there is not a cost-benefit analysis for the border of Texas. But the government is analyzing whether the current state of fences is effective or not. Nobody has any knowledge of how many miles the wall will be built or the location. During August and September, Homeland Security officials declared that six construction companies had prototypes of the wall. But the designs have yet to be revealed to the public.

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Facts: As of Jan 4th the federal government has designated $15 billion towards constructing the wall. Biden promised to undo almost all of trumps immigrations policies. Most of wall construction took place in 2019, 100 miles of border wall had been completed in the three years of trump. So theres 350 miles completed.  Even though the government has all the power to terminate they will likely still pay a termination fee.

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Facts:
- Some background information: Title 42 was initially used in 2019, while there was a mumps outbreak by White House Adviser Stephen Miller. This allows immigration authorities at the border to block migrants from entering and not give them a chance to apply for asylum. This was given by the CDC in order to stop from entering the country.
- The Trump had used this policy in order to keep migrants out as the pandemic unfolded as of March 2020.
- Judge Emmet Sullivan said that Title 42 is supposed to block migrants and not expel them
- The Biden Administration made some exceptions for unaccompanied children but still was expelling people. The Administration defends their decision by claiming it is not an immigration policy but a public health policy to slow down the spread of coronavirus.
- As of September 2021, thousands of Haitian migrants are camped under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. Around 3,300 were located to migrant processing facilities in San Antonio, Laredo and Eagle Pass, Texas, while over 300 have been sent back to Haiti.
- Haitian migrants are asking for asylum due to a recent earthquake as well as political turmoil within Haiti.
- Immigrant advocates are fighting in court to end Title 42.

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As the Biden administration moves quickly to expel migrants camped under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, its plan depends on a controversial Trump-era policy put in place in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to speed up removals.

Thousands of migrants - many originally from Haiti - have been camped out in squalid conditions since last week. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas visited the site Monday and pledged to ramp up removal and expulsion flights of arriving migrants.

"If you come to the U.S. illegally, you will be returned," Mayorkas said at a news conference. "Your journey will not succeed."

That expulsion plan rests on a rarely used public health law known as Title 42. Immigration authorities say a public health order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allows them to expel migrants crossing the border quickly without giving them a chance to apply for asylum.

President Biden came into office promising a more humane immigration system. Yet his administration has continued to use the Title 42 policy - and defend it in court - despite mounting pressure from immigrant advocates.

How did the policy come about, and how is it being challenged in court?

The Trump administration had long argued that migrants coming across the southern border did not qualify as refugees fleeing persecution and therefore were not protected by U.S. asylum law. As early as 2019, during an outbreak of mumps, well before the coronavirus pandemic, White House adviser Stephen Miller reportedly pushed for using Title 42 to turn back would-be migrants, according to The New York Times.

By March 2020, with coronavirus spreading rapidly in the U.S., the administration decided to invoke Title 42 to clamp down on the border.

The government expelled some 9,000 unaccompanied children who crossed the border before a federal judge in November ordered a preliminary injunction aimed at halting the practice. Judge Emmet Sullivan said Title 42 allows officials to block the entry of noncitizens who carry diseases but does not allow expulsions. He ordered an injunction to stop the rapid expulsions, though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit later stayed his order.

The Biden administration did carve out exceptions for unaccompanied migrant children. It has allowed the majority of parents and children arriving together to ask for asylum. But it has continued to expel many others, including some families and tens of thousands of single adults crossing the border.

Last week, however, Sullivan ordered a similar halt in the use of Title 42 to turn away families with children, setting a two-week deadline for the administration to comply.

The administration is appealing that decision as well.

Why is the Biden administration trying to keep the Title 42 policy alive?

The Biden administration defends its use of Title 42 as a public safety measure to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

"Title 42 is not an immigration authority, but a public health authority," Mayorkas said. "To protect the American public. To protect the communities along the border. And to protect the migrants themselves."

But physicians and immigrant advocates said that position is merely a pretext to remove migrants from the country quickly -with the most recent example being those sheltered under the international bridge at the Del Rio port of entry.

"What people need to understand is that, yes, the Haiti situation in Del Rio is awful," said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has fought Title 42 in court across two administrations. "But it's only the most recent dramatic illustration of what this Title 42 policy can do."

Although the Biden White House undid some of former President Donald Trump's harshest immigration policies, it is seeking a balance to deter more migrants from crossing the border.

On Sunday, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said the government had moved 3,300 individuals from the bridge camp to migrant processing facilities in San Antonio, Laredo and Eagle Pass, Texas. Ortiz said the local school system had lent buses to the effort, which he said was being carried out in a "humane and timely manner."

Officials said just over 300 have been removed on flights to Haiti.

"We are working around-the-clock to expeditiously move migrants out of the heat, elements and from underneath this bridge to our processing facilities in order to quickly process and remove individuals from the United States consistent with our laws and our policies," Ortiz said.

Critics on both the left and right have lashed out at the administration's handling of the situation in Del Rio. Hard-liners and some Republicans said the Biden administration is letting in too many migrants, while some Democrats said the White House is abandoning migrants.

What comes next?

Immigrant advocates said they will keep fighting in court to end Title 42. They said it is particularly cruel to implement it in this case since Haiti is still recovering from a recent earthquake and major political turmoil.

The ACLU's Gelernt said that the rights organization is "extremely disappointed but not shocked" by the Biden administration's decision to appeal the latest Title 42 ruling to the D.C. Circuit.

"We would have thought that the Biden administration, given how much they're talking about wanting a humane asylum system, would have at least grappled with the decision," he said.

Instead, the Biden administration is fighting in court to preserve one of the Trump administration's most hated border policies.

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The Biden Administration Is Fighting In Court To Keep A Trump-Era Immigration Policy

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As the Biden administration moves quickly to expel migrants camped under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, its plan depends on a controversial Trump-era policy put in place in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to speed up removals. Thousands of migrants - many originally from Haiti - have been camped out in squalid conditions since last week.

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Facts:

Trump administration restricted student visas to a strict 2-4 year timeframe. The Department of Homeland Security on September 25, 2020 published a fixed duration status for students on F and J visas and members of the international media on I visas. Students on F-1 visas are granted for the duration of their studies as long as they are enrolled full-time. Their visa duration would depend on their program of study, and they may also request for extension periods but subject to approval. Their visa duration could also be negatively affected based on the student’s country of origin. Countries that have over 10% of overstay rates and/or are state sponsors of terrorism would only be eligible for 2-year visas, but they may apply for extension. These countries include Africa, China, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and lesser degree parts of Asia.

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In the latest move targeting international student and exchange visas, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday published the long-awaited proposed rule on "duration of status" that would create a fixed amount of time of authorized stay for students on F and J visas and members of the international media on I visas.

As justification, the Trump administration says the rule would make these visas more consistent with other visa categories and allow DHS more opportunities to review whether holders are complying with the conditions of their visas.

Currently, F-1 student visas are granted for the duration of a student's studies, as long as the student is enrolled in a full-time course of study. The proposed rule would set the authorized admission and extension periods for F visas and J-1 exchange visas not to exceed two or four years, based on the specific program of study. The time period could also be limited to two years based on overstay rates of the visa holder's country of origin or because of national security concerns. Students from countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism-including Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria-or with visa overstay rates over 10 percent would only be eligible for two-year visas, although they could apply for an extension.

As Inside Higher Ed said Friday, the restriction based on countrywide visa overstay rates would disproportionately effect students from Africa and, to a lesser degree, parts of Asia. Vox does the math and says it would impact students in 59 countries.

Brad Farnsworth, ACE's vice president of global engagement, told The Wall Street Journal that he fears the new rules would give the government more opportunities to deny visas to Chinese students, who make up about a third of the overall international student population, given the rapidly deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and China.

"I see openings in this document, if you wanted to discriminate against students and not renew their visas, where you could certainly do that," he said.

Among the other provisions, the rule would:

Transition all current F, J, and I visas to a two year or four year period, based on the date of admission and the program end date noted on the most recent 1-20 or DS-2019;

create a new extension process for F, J, and I visas;

decrease from 60 to 30 days the allowed period for F aliens to depart from the United States after completion of study, and

limit language training students to an aggregate 24 month period of stay (including breaks and vacations).

"If you've decided to invest in a four-year degree and for some reason you switch your major ... or do something else that slows down your progress to degree, how certain are you ... [that DHS] is going to grant the extension for you to finish," Sarah Spreitzer, director of government relations for ACE, told Education Dive.

ACE will be working with the higher education community to draft and submit comments. As of Sept. 28, over 10,000 comments had already been uploaded to the Federal Register. ​

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Trump Administration Seeks to Restrict Student Visas to a Strict Two- or Four-Year Timeframe

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As justification, the Trump administration says the rule would make these visas more consistent with other visa categories and allow DHS more opportunities to review whether holders are complying with the conditions of their visas. Currently, F-1 student visas are granted for the duration of a student's studies, as long as the student is enrolled in a full-time course of study.

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Fact: Trump administration's prohibited muslim to travel. "On January 27, 2017, Trump signed an executive order that banned travel to the United States for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim countries." These countries were Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. A protest started at the airports. An organization of immigrant rights, civil liberties and refugee resettlement took upon themselves to bring down discrimination that was happening. "On June 26, 2018, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 opinion, allowed a third version of the executive order to go into force, which expanded the list of barred travelers to include nationals from Venezuela and North Korea." Most of these countries have a lot of travel restriction. Trump tried to protect the people from the outgoing efforts to engage those countries to help to cooperate the protocols that have been made. Some of the countries are still not improving their  procedures but other countries have followed the protocols. The Secretary of Homeland Security forced certain restrictions for the entry into the United States.

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Summary

On January 27, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order that banned travel to the United States for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim countries-Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen-and suspended the resettlement of all Syrian refugees. The order sparked protests around the country at airports and immigrant rights, refugee resettlement, and civil liberties organizations undertook several legal challenges to the order on the grounds that it constituted religious discrimination. The suits against the travel bans resulted in court injunctions temporarily blocking the order and groups in opposition to the ban also blocked a second iteration of the executive order. Nevertheless, on June 26, 2018, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 opinion, ultimately allowed a third version of the executive order to go into force, which expanded the list of barred travelers to include nationals from Venezuela (limited to government officials) and North Korea. In 2020, the Trump administration expanded visa restrictions on six more countries-Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania-citing screening and national security concerns in those countries. Nationals of thirteen countries are currently subject to various travel restrictions.

Source
Presidential Proclamation Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats
Issued on: September 24, 2017

. . . . As President, I must act to protect the security and interests of the United States and its people. I am committed to our ongoing efforts to engage those countries willing to cooperate, improve information-sharing and identity-management protocols and procedures, and address both terrorism-related and public-safety risks. Some of the countries with remaining inadequacies face significant challenges. Others have made strides to improve their protocols and procedures, and I commend them for these efforts. But until they satisfactorily address the identified inadequacies, I have determined, on the basis of recommendations from the Secretary of Homeland Security and other members of my Cabinet, to impose certain conditional restrictions and limitations, as set forth more fully below, on entry into the United States of nationals of the countries identified in section 2 of this proclamation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, hereby find that, absent the measures set forth in this proclamation, the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of persons described in section 2 of this proclamation would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and that their entry should be subject to certain restrictions, limitations, and exceptions. I therefore hereby proclaim the following:

Section 1. Policy and Purpose. (a) It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks and other public-safety threats. Screening and vetting protocols and procedures associated with visa adjudications and other immigration processes play a critical role in implementing that policy . . . .

Sec. 2. Suspension of Entry for Nationals of Countries of Identified Concern. The entry into the United States of nationals of the following countries is hereby suspended and limited, as follows, subject to categorical exceptions and case by-case waivers . . . . [Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Somalia]

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand seventeen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-second.

DONALD J. TRUMP

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The "Muslim Ban" refers to a series of the Trump administration's executive orders that prohibited travel and refugee resettlement from select predominately Muslim countries. After several legal challenges, the Supreme Court upheld most provisions of a third version of the ban.

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Facts- With most migrants crossing through Texas, state officials are eager to find companies to continue the construction of the wall in the state. State officials have highlighted five companies that could possibly be contracted to complete the state wall. Since the Trump Administration, multiple companies have won contracts with states in order to build the border wall. For example in May 2020, a company won a $1.3 Billion contract with the state of Arizona for the state's wall. In total under the Trump Administration, 81 miles of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border has barriers. President Biden has halted construction at the border at the moment because of concerns of damage to the lands. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has made border security one of his main agendas to try to win reelection next year. Governor Abbott has also challenged President Biden's attempts to stop the construction of the wall.

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State officials have shortlisted five firms to design and build barriers on the Texas-Mexico border - including some companies that had the quality of their work or its impact on the environment questioned on previous wall projects under the Trump administration.

The Texas Facilities Commission, the state agency in charge of awarding the contracts, is currently interviewing BFBC of Texas, Fisher Sand & Gravel Co., Posillico Civil Inc., SLSCO and Southwest Valley Constructors Co.

Francoise Luca, a spokesperson for the commission, said the agency will decide which companies will win contracts, but there's no announced timetable for publicly naming the winners. All five companies previously have been awarded federal border wall contracts or have been considered for those contracts under the Trump administration.

In 2020, North Dakota-based Fisher Sand & Gravel built a 3-mile long wall at a cost of $45 million at the edge of the Rio Grande in Mission. The company was hired by We Build the Wall, a nonprofit that crowdfunded private donations and listed Steve Bannon, a former Trump political strategist, as a board member.

A Texas Tribune/ProPublica investigation found last year that the company's wall showed signs of runoff erosion that, if not fixed, could put the wall in danger of falling into the Rio Grande, according to engineers and hydrologists who reviewed photos of the wall.

Tommy Fisher, the company's president, has dismissed the concerns through a company lawyer, Mark Courtois, who called the erosion "a normal part of new construction projects like this and does not in any way compromise the fence or associated roadway."

After that project, the company also won a $1.3 billion federal contract for border wall construction in Arizona in May 2020.

Southwest Valley Constructors Co., a New Mexico-based affiliate of Kiewit Corp., was previously awarded at least $2.7 billion in contracts by the Trump administration for border barriers in Arizona and Texas. U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials in Arizona raised concerns that the company's work caused groundwater levels to plunge at a wildlife refuge in southern Arizona.

BFBC of Texas, a Montana-based subsidiary of Barnard Construction, won a $142 million federal contract in May 2019 to replace existing barriers in Arizona. The contract came under scrutiny by government watchdogs after it was modified and ballooned to $569 million a year later.

Texas-based SLSCO won $2.2 billion worth of border wall contracts during the Trump administration. In January 2020, a section of fencing the company built in Calexico, Calif., blew over during construction, which a Border Patrol official blamed on high winds that struck before concrete had dried.

Posillico Civil Inc., based in New York, has been shortlisted for federal border wall contracts but hasn't won a contract.

In total, Trump's administration erected about 80 miles of new barriers on the nearly 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border before he left office, including 21 miles along the Texas-Mexico border. The Biden administration has halted all construction, and companies that were erecting barriers have started fixing environmental damage caused by the border wall work.

Gov. Greg Abbott has made border security one of his top agenda items as he seeks reelection next year. He sought private donations for the border wall, has sent state troopers and Texas Rangers to some border cities to arrest asylum-seeking migrants on state charges and has sued the Biden administration for attempting to reverse Trump-era immigration policies.

In September, the Texas Facilities Commission awarded an $11 million contract to Michael Baker International Inc., and Huitt-Zollars to oversee the construction of a barrier along the border, identifying state land where barriers can be built and finding "willing private landowners to facilitate construction," according to the request for proposal.

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Five firms being considered for design and construction of Texas-Mexico border wall that Gov. Greg Abbott promised

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Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. State officials have shortlisted five firms to design and build barriers on the Texas-Mexico border - including some companies that had the quality of their work or its impact on the environment questioned on previous wall projects under the Trump administration.

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Facts:
- Under the Trump Administration, the  Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) was implemented.  Also known as the “Remain in Mexico” initiative, the Administration implemented a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, it is where asylum applicants who arrive “on land (whether or not at a designated port of arrival) from a foreign territory contiguous to the United States” can be returned “to that territory” while their claims for asylum are pending.
- Biden's campaign website had stated that he would end many of President Trump’s asylum policies, starting with the MPP, which he did do in January 2021.
- Biden's website had also said that he would “direct the necessary resources to ensure asylum applications are processed fairly and efficiently, while treating families and children with compassion and sensitivity.”

React:
While asylum seekers no longer have to fear being turned away because of the MPP, they do have to fear being turned away because of the Title 42 section on refugee policy which prevents asylum seekers from entering based on the health of the country. Trump used this and now Biden continues to do so as well. I find this to be rather contradicting on Biden's part because rather than focusing on the rights of asylum seekers, his administration is focused on arrests and deportation of asylum seekers. Clearly, the administration needs to work on following through with its promises. Instead of simply condemning the inhuman treatment of people, as Border Patrol agents recently did with Haitian migrants in Texas, perhaps he should consider following through with protecting their rights.