Mexico’s largest city on the US border fears crisis over asylum ban

Tijuana, Mexico, June 5 (EFE) – Tijuana, the largest city on Mexico’s northern border, fears it could become the epicenter of a new humanitarian crisis following United States President Joe Biden’s new executive order that limits asylum requests and accelerates deportations.

Prominent activists in Tijuana, on the California border, rejected the measure as being “risky,” “restrictive,” and because it does not guarantee a reduction in irregular crossings.

Paulina Olvera Canez, director of the organization Espacio Migrante, told EFE that these are “the same strategies seen since the (Donald) Trump administration (2017-2021), such as MMP (Migrant Protection Protocols), ‘Remain in Mexico'”.

“These are policies that Biden denounced during the campaign and that he promised to end,” he said in an interview.

Migrants are at greater risk

Biden’s order, signed five months before the US presidential election, will allow US authorities to deport people who do not pass strict asylum standards when the border exceeds 2,500 daily detentions for an average of seven days.

Olvera Cánez denounced that “they are policies that do not work and the only thing they generate is that people are forced to stay in Mexico for longer periods of time,” which puts them in danger.

“There are people who need international protection and who are victims of crimes such as kidnapping, extortion and other violent crimes in northern cities such as Tijuana, Nogales, Juarez and (the state of) Tamaulipas,” he warned.

He said these measures “force people to cross through more dangerous places, like deserts or rivers, or they have to resort to coyotes (human traffickers) or organized crime.”

He lamented that it is “an electoral strategy”, noting that it is “worrisome” that it comes from the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party, so it could be a starting point for even more explicit proposals.

“This is not a good approach, it is very worrying that once the number of people requesting asylum at the border reaches its limit, it will be closed and migrants will be deported immediately,” he said.

A crisis that was ‘seen coming’

José María García Lara, director of Movimiento Juventud 2000, told the media that this was “something that could already be seen coming”, since it was planned from the ‘CBP-One’ program, which “has been very slow in the border area, especially in Tijuana, which has caused groups of migrants to cross untimely.”

“We have a lot of people returning from Mexico and other countries, but we don’t know how this return will happen. It will also mean that there will be a large migrant community in the shelters and at some point we could have a migrant crisis again,” he warned.

García Lara highlighted that, under this measure, it will be important for the US government to state, just as it is going to return migrants who cross irregularly, “that the ‘CBP One’ program be accelerated so that it can admit more so that it can quickly execute other types of actions for regularization.”

I am waiting for the post from Mexico

Enrique Lucero Vázquez, the head of Tijuana’s Municipal Migrant Assistance Directorate (DMAM), agreed that the measure could “oversaturate” the shelters, which are now at 60% occupancy.

“However, we are waiting to know what the position of the Mexican government is regarding this declaration and what actions will be taken to deal with this situation, since this measure does not solve the underlying problem and migrants will continue to come to the city to request asylum in the United States,” he commented.

The official specified that this action does not mean the complete closure of the border, nor of the international ports of San Ysidro, El Chaparral and Otay, nor of the 400 regular daily crossings of ‘CBP One’ through this border, as has been estimated in some media.

“This closure is specific to those who cross irregularly,” he explained.