US Seeks Regional Approach to Migration and Asylum

SAN JOSE, COSTA (AP) — Faced with the possibility of a reopening of the southern border to asylum seekers, the US government urges its Latin American allies to tighten control over migration and expand its own asylum program.

US President Joe Biden is under increasing pressure from his party leaders to end the asylum restrictions implemented since March 2020 to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The US Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mallorcas, met with Costa Rican officials on Tuesday the day after meeting with Mexico.When these restrictions are lifted, the support of the allies will be important in controlling the peak of migration.

Both countries are important, have their own asylum rules, and are transit routes to the United States for immigrants coming from outside South America and the Americas.

Last month, Costa Rica began asking Venezuelans and Cubans for visas, a measure to curb migration to the north. Mexico, which already needed visas for Cubans, added Venezuela in January.

The US authorities had 3,072 meetings with Venezuela at the Mexican border in February, compared to 22,779 in the previous month. The figures released on Tuesday show the impact of the new Mexican requirement for Venezuela, which has been in effect since January 21. Colombians do not need a visa to travel to Mexico, and there have been 9,600 encounters compared to 3,911 in January.

According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), US authorities found a total of 164,973 immigrants in February, which was well below the 200,000 peak in August, but found 154,745 in January and more than 101,099 immigrants in February 2021.

“We are welcoming more refugees and supporting our allies in South and Central America to secure borders,” Biden said in a federal speech a few weeks ago.

Biden expanded these statements last week when he invited Colombian President Ivan Duke at the White House.

Biden said, “It calls for a new framework for how countries across the region can jointly deal with the migration of the Western Hemisphere.” “Our goal is to... It is about signing the Regional Declaration on Migration and Protection in June in Los Angeles, where the United States will hold the Americas Summit.”

With a more local approach to asylum, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia could be considered safe havens, said Alan Bersin, who was the head of CBP in the presidency of Barack Obama.

“To control the migration peak at the border, it is necessary to provide asylum abroad,” Bersin said in other countries. “This kind of local approach to migration will be very important.”

However, even countries with relatively competent asylum schemes, such as Mexico, Costa Rica, and Colombia, have been overwhelmed in recent years.

In Mexico, 131,448 people applied for asylum last year, which was 70,000 in 2019, almost double the pre-epidemic registration, which increased more than 100 times from 2013.

Since the political crisis in Nicaragua in 2018, Costa Rica has welcomed tens of thousands of Nicaraguan people each year. Costa Rica has increased from 68 and 67 asylum seekers in 2016 and 2017 respectively to 59,450 last year, of which 89% are Nicaraguan. In January alone, Costa Rica received 5,350 applications.

What further complicates the situation in Costa Rica is the second presidential election on April 3, when the unemployment rate reached 13.1%. Last week, the police expelled about 2,000 people, mainly Nicaraguans, who tried to establish informal settlements in the capital.

1.8 million Venezuelans live in Colombia and have provided temporary protection status as a result of the political and economic crisis in the country.

Panama has very limited asylum capacity, and less than 10,000 applications were processed in 2019 prior to the pandemic.

Mexico and Colombia are countries that continue to generate large numbers of immigrants due to violence and lack of economic opportunities.

“These are not countries that have the capacity to accommodate a large number of people who need a lot of support,” said Maureen Meyer, vice president of programs at the Washington Latin America Office, a non-governmental organization for human rights.

In his opinion, any solution should include strengthening the asylum system, as well as alternatives for those who do not qualify for asylum but urgently need immigration.

“And the other side of the coin is that as long as the United States closes the asylum system for most applicants, it seems very difficult to encourage other countries to do what the United States does not do.” Meyer said.

On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) withdrew an order to deny asylum for unaccompanied migrant children.The rule known as Title 42, issued during the Trump era and named after the Public Health Act of 1944, is still valid for adults and families traveling with children.

Tiziano Breda, an international crisis group analyst in Central America, noted that the US diplomatic tensions with Guatemala and El Salvador “complicate the implementation of a possible regional plan.”

A spokesman for Sibylla Brodzinsky said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has called for a local approach for some time to help hemisphere countries build capacity to accommodate refugees and asylum seekers.

However, it made a difference between “transferring the burden”, that is, “asking another country to do so without being responsible.”

The UNHCR has long called on the US government to stop using Title 42 at the border.

Senator Chuck Schumer (Senator Chuck Schumer) said on Saturday he was puzzled by the fact that the CDC is continuing “this strict policy at the border” amid strong signs of recovery from the pandemic.

A visit to Mayorkas may serve as a basis for revocation of the action.

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Elliot Spagat, an AP journalist from San Diego, contributed to the company.