Criticism of US migration policy: “The crisis is predictable – and preventable”

In the Texan town of Del Rio, a refugee drama is taking place these days. This puts US President Biden under massive pressure. There are many who foresaw the current situation and warned about it.

The pictures go around the world: Thousands of refugees, mainly from Haiti, wade through the Rio Grande and camp in front of a hastily erected fence under the border bridge to the USA. Republican politicians in particular attack US President Joe Biden for this and accuse him of failing to get the situation at the border under control.

South of the border, especially in Mexico, and from then on also by US human rights organizations, the situation is viewed completely differently: “The USA has dictated its migration policy to the region. With the ‘Stay’ in Mexico ‘program, we commit ourselves to all people who want to apply for asylum in the USA from Mexico. What does that mean? These people hold out mainly in the border towns, where there is a particularly high level of crime, “says Ana Lorena Delgadillo from the Mexican Foundation for Justice and the Rule of Law.

“This is not a sudden crisis”

In an interview with the television broadcaster BNC News, Nicole Phillips of the California grassroots organization Haitian Bridge Alliance also sees the cause of the current humanitarian crisis in Texas, especially in the USA: “This is not a sudden crisis that has surprised everyone. It has spread Months if not years built up. Most Haitians have lived and waited in Mexico for years, often since 2016. So what is happening now in Del Rio was absolutely predictable and preventable, and we’ve been telling the various US governments that for years, “says she.

The Obama administration had already heavily regulated entry from Haiti. And ex-President Trump had de facto undermined the right of asylum with the so-called Title 42 with reference to the corona pandemic and had those arriving immediately deported, over a million people have been deported since then. The result: There have been refugee camps all over the Latin American mainland, some for years.

Haiti’s ongoing crisis continues

Thousands of people from Haiti waited for weeks on the Colombian Caribbean coast for the crossing to Panama, thousands in Central American Costa Rica, further northwest in Honduras, on the Mexican southern border with Guatemala and in the northern Mexican cities on the border with the USA. The long journey by sea and land is extremely hard and dangerous for people. Luis Robinson, a young Haitian, has made it to the Mexican port city of Tampico – and doesn’t understand why things can’t go on now: “I would really like to help my country, but I have no means at all. There is so much chaos and so much Crime. I would like the US to help Haiti, we are so close and the US is the most powerful country in the world. “

A US federal judge suspended the Title 42 ordinance on Thursday. That could encourage more people to cross the border, even if the Biden government now wants to fly those arriving quickly to Haiti with special flights. Because the permanent crisis in Haiti continues: after the catastrophic earthquake of 2010, the Caribbean country has been going through a serious political, economic and social crisis since 2018. And the as yet unsolved murder of President Jovenel Moïse at the beginning of September, followed by violent political upheaval, offer no reason to hope that the situation in Haiti will improve – and that the number of people fleeing will decline.