Colombia piles more PRESSURE on Biden as it halts migrant returns deal with the U.S.
Biden’s border CHAOS: Colombia puts more PRESSURE on White House as it halts migrant returns to US over alleged ‘mistreatment’ of asylum seekers, Title 42 will be scrapped
Joe Biden faces more pressure over illegal immigration now that Colombia dropped a return deal over what it called “mistreatment” of asylum seekers.
The move is yet another blow to Biden’s fight against illegal border crossings as Covid powers against migration expire on May 11.
More than 125,000 Colombians tried to sneak into the United States last year, according to data from the country’s Customs and Border Protection Service.
There has been a surge in migrants from Colombia over the past year, and numbers are expected to increase once Title 42 expires
The South American nation accuses US authorities of mistreating its migrant citizens
But Migration Colombia chief Fernando Garcia said late Thursday he had decided to suspend round-trip flights from the US
‘There are recurring complaints about the poor conditions in detention centers and in-flight abuse,” the country’s top migration official said, claiming that passengers had their feet and hands handcuffed.
He also accused US immigration officials of grounding planes on May 1 and 2 intended to return failed Colombian asylum seekers.
Garcia gave no indication of when flights would resume.
Bogota authorities were expected to receive some 1,200 migrants in the first week of May.
The plan, dubbed “mom returns,” aimed to smuggle women, children and adolescents from the US and return them to Colombia.
The plan saw the number of deportation flights into the country rise to about 20 per month, according to Migration Colombia.
Biden has vowed to use processing centers in Colombia to reduce the number of illegal crossings. That plan is not jeopardized by the halting of returns
US immigration officials are trying to ramp up the deportation of illegal immigrants from the southern border before a Trump-era Covid dictate expires.
Emergency powers, known as Title 42, allow the Department of Homeland Security to remove suspected false asylum seekers without hearing their claim.
Derived from a nearly 80-year-old federal public health law, the Trump and Biden administration used Title 42 to stop the spread of Covid.
The United States has reached a similar agreement with Mexico, with its neighbor bringing back failed migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua.
But thousands of would-be immigrants camp close to the southern border in hopes of entering the US illegally once Title 42 disappears.
Officials expect at least 13,000 people each day to try to cross the border once that legislation is scrapped.
That’s why several top Republicans are demanding that the president consider extending the emergency bill.
Some border towns, including El Paso in Texas, have already declared a state of emergency.
The administration says it will use various legal tools to try to stop the flow of people trying to cross.
Those powers, known as Title 8, will mean that undocumented migrants detained in the United States will never be allowed to legally enter the country.
More than 2.3 million migrants tried to enter the United States illegally through the Mexican border last year, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
That’s more than 1.7 million people in 2021 and just over 450,000 the year before, when much of the world went into lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic.
Official records show that more than 2.3 million migrants attempted to illegally enter the United States last year