When the politics of certain nations shift, it can have a ripple effect that extends through the surrounding region and sometimes even affects the world at large.
This is especially true when a sudden crisis looms and people find themselves having to flee their homelands to protect their families. When enough people are in this situation, it becomes harder for neighboring countries to keep tabs on who seeks to enter their borders and why.
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And as these problems become more extreme, so too do their proposed solutions. There’s also not only the question of how well responses to border crises can work, but what the intentions behind those responses are.
While diligence in working out the answers to these questions is needed, it’s also true that the longer this takes, the easier it is for situations like the one unfolding at one Texas checkpoint to worsen.
In El Paso, Texas there’s a clear sign of what the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency head describes as a “breaking point.”
According to The Washington Post , the agency’s chief Kevin McAleenan said they detained over 4,100 migrants on Tuesday, which is the highest number in one day over the last decade.
By next month, that number is set to exceed 100,000, which exceeds even the numbers observed during the May 2014 border crisis: 68,800 people.
This influx of people, many of whom are seeking asylum after leaving Guatemala and Honduras, has meant that 13,000 migrants are now in CBP custody.
As McAleenan said , “A high number is 4,000,” he said. “Six-thousand is crisis level. Thirteen-thousand is unprecedented.”
Not only does this mean that CBP is left with insufficient facilities to process them, but that the legal structures in place to ensure legitimate asylum seekers’ rights are also backed up.
As McAleenan told reporters, “If they don’t have a valid claim, we’ll repatriate. If they do, they’ll be released with the certainty that they have asylum with the ability to plan, to invest in a business, to make these choices for schools. Right now, they don’t have that. They live with uncertainty for years at a time because the system is broken and overwhelmed.”
Those who now wait in El Paso are stuck in a makeshift holding area under a highway overpass.
And the longer agents have to interview families and other migrants in what amounts to a fenced-in parking lot and immigration courts experience a backlog of cases, the longer two extreme issues risk going unresolved.
The first is that the strain on health services related to this crisis is putting migrant lives at risk.
According to The Washington Post , agents have seen infants with 105-degree fevers, a 2-year-old experience seizures in the desert, and people with organ failures amid cases of chickenpox, lice, and flu.
McAleenan said, “We are doing everything we can to simply avoid a tragedy in a CBP facility. But with these numbers, with the types of illnesses we’re seeing at the border, I fear that it’s just a matter of time.”
Another issue is the number of unattended children who end up in these detention areas because they can’t be sheltered fast enough.
Although the U.S. government is no longer making it their policy to separate parents and children, 1,350 children — with 20% of them being 12 years old and under — remain in holding without a parent present.
By law, these children can’t remain in CBP custody for more than 72 hours, but the agency has admitted to doing just that because they have nowhere to put them.
In an effort to suit the needs of these children, CBP has been re-assigning agents to El Paso.
Some of these agents were previously stationed at the U.S.-Canadian border. Another option is to expand emergency facilities to deal with the 12,000 minors now in the custody of Health and Human Services.
As for the migrants who are of age, the agency is resorting to what are called “direct releases.”
Not only does this end their detention, but it also means that they are not turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and they are not fitted with ankle bracelets to track their movements. They simply receive a notice to appear in court at a set date.
McAleenan called this a “negative outcome,” but said the crisis leaves this as the only option in many cases.
h/t: The Washington Post
