WASHINGTON – The Secretary of National Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, insisted this Sunday on asking migrants who try to enter the country through the southern border not to do so: “Don’t come, the border is not open.”
In an interview on CNN, Mayorkas used the same phrase as a year before in the middle of the migration crisis to try to dissuade those who undertake a trip to the United States. An expression that the vice president, Kamala Harris, also used then
Her message from him now, said Mayorkas, is “the same, because the border is not open.” “Don’t come,” he reiterated.
He recalled that the Title 42 -the sanitary norm approved at the beginning of the pandemic that allows the rapid expulsion of migrants at the US land borders– and also the migratory regulations that those who do not have a “valid” entry permit cannot pass.
But above all, he stressed, “they should not put their lives at risk or in the hands” of the mafias that traffic immigrants.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced recently its plan to rescind next May 23 the Title 42, although last April 27 a Louisiana judge suspended for 14 days the preparations of the Administration to put an end to that rule.
The magistrate has set u A hearing for the next day 14 in May in which a definitive resolution could be adopted on the future of the Title 42.
In the first six months of the current fiscal year, which began in October 2021, authorities have detained at the southern border just over one million immigrants, of which 549,000 were expelled from the country in application of the Title 42, according to data from the Customs and Border Protection Office
In the interview, Alejandro Mayorkas assured that the Government is preparing for the different possible scenarios and that is why it has presented a six-point plan to reinforce the border with Mexico.
Given the forecasts that there may be 18,000 migrants a day when the aforementioned rule is lifted, acknowledged that this figure knew There would be significant “pressure” for the system but for this reason, he assured, they have been preparing for months and are also working with their partners in the south because this, he stressed, is a “regional problem” that requires everyone’s efforts.
Mayorcas is being the main target of the Republicans on the immigration issue, and even members of that party have threatened to promote an impeachment process against him in Congress, but he assured in the interview that he is not worried about that issue, but concentrated on his tasks.
Last Friday, US President Joe Biden tried to coordinate with his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a common strategy in the face of the “unprecedented” flow of migrants that is arriving to the common border.
Both agreed on a visit to Washington on Monday by the Mexican foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, to continue working on these issues.
