Biden under fire for deportation of vulnerable migrants at southern border

The administration of US President Joe Biden is ramping up deportations and prosecutions of migrants crossing the southern border, under a Trump-era order, that left vulnerable asylum-seekers subjected to sexual abuse and murder at the he hands of drug cartels and human traffickers, right organizations warn.

US authorities are lately flying Central American migrants deep into the Mexican interior, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials.

They said the expulsions are meant to curb repeat border crossings and the spread of the coronavirus.

The Biden administration has also restarted "expedited removal" flights for some migrant families who can't be expelled to Mexico.

According to the DHS officials, the US has carried out six expedited removal flights to Central America, deporting 242 migrant parents and children since the end of July.

In the meantime, details of joint efforts between Guatemala and Mexico are also began trickling out.

Report: US begins expelling migrants to south Mexico under Trump-era policy

US President Joe Biden has reversed many immigration policies introduced by his mercurial Republican predecessor, but has continued with the controversial ‘Title 42’ policy.

Citing a Guatemalan official, AP reported that Mexico is busing migrants from Guatemalans, Honduras and El Salvador to remote border crossings with Guatemala after they arrive on US government flights.

Mexican immigration agency buses are unloading migrants from those flights at international crossings in El Carmen and El Ceibo — a remote outpost where there is a small shelter.

The official said Guatemala is not participating in the joint campaign, though.

UN agencies warn against deportations

The deportations have drawn concerns from United Nations agencies, who warned the authorities about the treatment of vulnerable migrants needing humanitarian protection.

Matthew Reynolds, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative to the United States and Caribbean, warned the flights to southern Mexico strain limited humanitarian resources there and raise the risk of the coronavirus infection.

“Individuals or families aboard those flights who may have urgent protection needs risk being sent back to the very dangers they have fled in their countries of origin in Central America without any opportunity to have those needs assessed and addressed,” Reynolds said in a statement.

Biden doubles down on Trump’s controversial border policy

Joe Biden has doubled down on Donald Trump’s controversial border policy and has already expelled more migrants under Title 42 than Trump did.

Several other refugee agencies, including UNICEF, and the International Organization for Migration expressed concern for Washington’s continued use of the public health justification for not allowing the normal asylum process.

One of those migrants, Melissa Pinedo — a 27-year-old single mother from Guatemala — who has been living in a tent in Reynosa, Mexico, for weeks, was trying to find someone to call about a fast-closing window for seeking US asylum.

“There are numbers of lawyers that are circulating, but no one answers. They are overwhelmed," she said in a phone interview.

Pinedo said she and her brother witnessed the gang murder of a shopkeeper who failed to pay extortion fees two years ago.

Gang members tracked down her brother and killed him a month later, she said.

Pinedo then escaped to a different neighborhood and sent her daughter across the border alone, two weeks ago.

The 8-year old girl is now in US federal custody for minors, waiting to be released to Pinedo's relative who resides in Los Angeles.

The controversial public health policy, known as Title 42, allows border agents to quickly expel most migrants caught crossing the US-Mexico border.

President Biden, who took office promising a more humane approach to immigration than his Republican predecessor, has kept the order in place and recently extended it.

Rights organizations say the administration’s decision to illegally keep the border closed and end humanitarian exemptions, plays into the hands of cartels who claim that they are the only reliable means for people to enter the US.

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