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The massive arrival of undocumented immigrants to the border in recent months, at a rate unprecedented in several decades, led the Border Patrol to release many of them without even assigning them first. an appointment to appear before an immigration court to examine their asylum requests.
According to a report on the informative website Axios , between March and mid-July were 50, 000 total; They were instructed to report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office to regularize their status as asylum seekers, but only on 13% have done it so far.
The decision to release such a high number of immigrants without processing them before has no known precedent, but the situation on the border, despite the fact that Joe Biden’s government is reluctant to call it a crisis, is also exceptional : between October (when the fiscal year in which these statistics are measured began) until July, more than a million immigrants were intercepted, the highest number in 20 years, as indicated by the Department of Homeland Security .
Federal procedure establishes that, upon being released, immigration agents deliver a list of addresses of the ICE offices throughout the country and advise that they must appear before one of them within a period of two months.
In this way, Immigrants can receive a temporary work permit, and an appointment to appear before the immigration court that must decide if they can stay permanently in the country or should be expelled.
But only 6, 700 of the migrants released in this way between March and July showed up at the offices from ICE, as explained to Axios by a source from the Department of Homeland Security.
Others 16, 000 had not done so despite the deadline of 60 days they had. “Those who do not report, like anyone who is in our country without legal status, are subject to being removed by ICE,” said DHS spokeswoman Meira Bernstein.
What’s more, 27, immigrants who crossed and were released during the same period of time They have not yet come forward either, but they are still within the legal deadline to do so.
Congressman Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, told Axios that only last week more than 7 were released, 000 immigrants without a court date, and that in total, since March, have already added more than 55 , .
To manage concentration of undocumented immigrants on the border with Mexico, the Government has developed a strategy of 21 pun to examine asylum applications more quickly and deport those who do not meet the requirements, according to a copy of the plan obtained by NBC News, sister network of Noticias Telemundo.
The Administration encourages that asylum officials have full authority to make decisions on petitions made by migrants who cross the border, which prevents all asylum seekers from being able to defend their cases in immigration courts, that now accumulate a delay of more than 1.2 million cases.
Currently, the Government continues to apply the restrictions of the previous Administration on the southern border to prevent the spread of COVID cases – 19, known as Title 42, despite opposition from immigration groups in a federal lawsuit.