Staff Reports
The US government is considering a new policy aimed at restricting the travel of undocumented immigrant families as they wait for asylum hearings. It would keep them near the border in Texas while they're being processed. The number of families apprehended at the southern border has been increasing, raising concerns about the effect on local communities.
Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has been transferring thousands of migrants from his state to cities such as New York, LA, and Washington, DC, which are controlled by Democrats. This move has been condemned by mayors of these cities, who claim that it is a way to pressure border-state governments to adopt more lenient policies. Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, called this practice "destroying" the city.
The plan proposed by Biden would require some families to stay in border states or even in the US. They would be monitored by GPS devices, and they would undergo an asylum evaluation to see if they're eligible to stay in the country. The administration is currently in talks with local groups about helping these families.
Keeping families near the border helps facilitate their deportation, as failure to pass their initial screenings could lead to removal. Also, apprehending them within the country's interior poses challenges, especially when apprehended with children. Since the number of migrants apprehended at the border has been decreasing, the deportations of families have been lower than those of single adults.
The new policy would expand the implementation of a program known as FERM, which was launched by the Biden administration to monitor and place curfews on the travel of migrant families. The goal of this program was to deter people from crossing the border illegally. However, since July, the US Border Patrol apprehended over 60,000 families at the border.
According to critics of the plan, the families are not given adequate time to prepare their cases and are not given adequate access to lawyers. Some also believe that the proposal to keep families in Texas while they wait for their hearings is discriminatory. The US government has maintained that migrants should be allowed to enter the country legally.
Contrary to the previous administrations' policies, the current Biden administration does not intend to detain families at the border. Instead, it will use other alternatives to holding them. This policy is different from the policies implemented by the Obama and Trump administrations. The proposed "remain-in-Texas" policy was last attempted during the Reagan administration.
The policies implemented by the Biden administration regarding border security and immigration continue to be heavily scrutinized and debated. Critics claim that these measures are contributing to a rising number of unauthorized entries and straining the country's resources. The situation remains complicated and divisive, and no quick fix is in sight.
