Biden stopped deporting child migrants from Central America, but has expelled 10,000 young Mexicans

WASHINGTON — Amnesty International issued a scathing report Friday asserting that nearly 10,000 Mexican children have been expelled soon after crossing the border since President Joe Biden took office — despite his vow to end harsh Trump-era treatment of young migrants, and a legal duty to make sure they don’t face danger if they’re sent back.

Biden has halted deportation of unaccompanied children from other countries, a shift welcomed by immigrant advocates.

But Customs and Border Protection continues to turn back children from Mexico, even though many are fleeing the same sorts of violence as migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who account for a huge spike in migration in recent months — and who do not face immediate deportation.

About 50,000 migrants classified as “unaccompanied alien children,” or UACs, have attempted to cross the border since Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, according to CBP data.

About one in five are Mexican, and 95% of those are expelled almost immediately, with no change in the pace of expulsions since Biden took over, according to Brian Griffey, the author and lead researcher on the Amnesty International report.

“Contrary to Biden’s promise to stop turning away unaccompanied kids to potential harm at the border, they are still returning almost all unaccompanied Mexican children, clearly on the discriminatory basis of their nationality, rather than on a real determination that they’re safe to be returned to Mexico,” Griffey said.

The White House and CBP ignored requests to respond to the Amnesty report, titled Pushed into Harm’s Way.

Vice President Kamala Harris, in Guatemala this week, issued a stern warning to migrants to dispel the perception that the Biden administration will welcome them.

“If you come to our border, you will be turned back. … Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border,” she said.

Republicans insist that Biden has signaled that the Southwest border is now open, by halting construction on Trump’s border wall and by halting at least some deportations, though the Amnesty International report shows that tough enforcement persists, at least in some ways.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on March 16 that more than 80% of those kids had a relative in the United States who they could live with.

“We are encountering six- and seven-year-old children, for example, arriving at our border without an adult. They are vulnerable children and we have ended the prior administration’s practice of expelling them,” Mayorkas said.

But that came with an asterisk: Mexican children continue to be expelled.

In Mexican border cities where these children are sent back to, shelters are overwhelmed.

“It has been a major challenge,” said Jesús Enrique Valenzuela, general coordinator of the state of Chihuahua’s Council for Population and Attention to Migrants, across from El Paso in Ciudad Juárez. “There has been a significant increase of deported children. … There have been times in which there is not enough capacity in government shelters.”

In March 2020, as the pandemic took hold, Trump invoked Title 42, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authority that allows deportation during a public health emergency without the usual legal procedures.

Illegal migration plummeted because of border closures and, with economic opportunities evaporated, a far less enticing trek.

The Trump administration expelled at least 13,000 children under Title 42. Then, in November, a federal judge ordered a halt to using the COVID-19 outbreak to justify deportation of child migrants.

A Trump-appointed appellate judge lifted the injunction on Jan. 29.

The next day, Biden issued an executive order granting an exception to unaccompanied child migrants, unless they are citizens of an adjacent country — that is, Mexico.

CBP data show that in October, just over half of the unaccompanied migrant children detained at the Southwest border were Mexicans.

The ratio soon shifted as more Central Americans began heading north – partly due to seasonal migration patterns, partly because voters ousted the hardliner Trump.

By March, the number of children caught crossing the border illegally quadrupled, and Mexicans accounted for only about one in eight.

Mayorkas, in March, asserted that unaccompanied children caught by the Border Patrol were transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours.

“The children then go through immigration proceedings where they are able to present a claim for relief under the law,” he said.

But according to Amnesty International, Mexican children are quickly turned away after only “superficial and ineffective” screening to determine if it would be safe to send them back across the border, or if they are victims of human trafficking.

“You’ve got Border Patrol agents doing these screenings and they overwhelmingly find the kids are fine to go back to Mexico,” said Griffey.

Children from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, by contrast, are transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Health and Human Services Department.

“The Biden administration is summarily returning almost all unaccompanied Mexican children just hours after they seek safe haven, often without considering the risks they could face upon return. Likewise, Mexican authorities are deporting the vast majority of unaccompanied children from Central America to their home countries — often where they just fled threats or violence — even though most have family in the United States with whom they are trying to unite,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. “These are dangerous and unconscionable policies.”