The Southern Border and Biden

 

Applying for asylum at international borders is a legal right guaranteed by the U.N. Convention on Refugees (to which the United States is a signatory) and the U.S. Refugee Act.

Since Biden took office, right-wing outlets have run non-stop sensationalist border stories depicting liberals as​“soft” on immigration. Such propaganda distracts from the very real plight of asylum seekers and the vulnerable families who are trying to build better lives for themselves are depicted as a security threat to the  United States, rather than the media garnering sympathy for those desperate people from the U.S. public.

Biden frequently talks about his humanity towards the migrants at the border but his actual actions have differed little from Trump’s. Biden has reopened migrant youth detention centres. Families who arrive at the border are denied entry, but unaccompanied minors pass through — tantamount to separating families on the Mexico side of the border, rather than changing the policy. Biden continued to apply Title 42, a public health statute, first used by Trump to expel migrants under a cynical pretext of controlling Covid-19. And before indignant grassroot Democrats forced him to back down, Biden also intended to maintain Trump’s low cap on refugees.

 There are tens of thousands of people in rough and ready makeshift camps on the Mexico side of the border exposed to the weather and to those criminal elements seeking to take advantage of them.

Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala have deployed 18,500 troops to stem migration from Central American countries at the behest of the United States to deter the migrant caravans. The United States imposed unequal trade agreements that privilege U.S. business interests over the well-being of local Central American.  The United States has legitimized and validated corrupt governments such as Honduras and the Hernández