About 8,000 Honduran asylum seekers tried to organize some sort of welcome party for President Joe Biden this month. Their attempt to reach the southern border of the US with at least two caravans was rejected thanks to agreements President Trump made with Mexico and Guatemala to use force to intercept illegal aliens. But Central America remains a simmering cauldron of potential migrants desperate to work in the US
Mr. Biden now has to devise his own strategy. More resources at the border to process applicants can help. But without new incentives for migrants to follow the law, the US will continue to rely heavily on militarization of immigration policies in Guatemala and Mexico to stem the inevitable flows of illegal aliens.
The Hondurans seem to have logically concluded that now that the Democrats are back in power, the Trump-era asylum restrictions will certainly be lifted. But on Jan. 17, NBC News reported that a senior Biden transition official said his message to the migrants was that “now is not the time to take the journey.” The same official also said they “must understand that they cannot enter the United States immediately.”
Beautiful words of warning did not discourage the migrants who left on January 15. On January 18, they were engaged in violent clashes with the Guatemalan National Guard and the National Police. Mothers in tears sat on the floor holding their children while young men blocked roads, threw stones and tried to get past the police.
Reports from the front say thousands have been turned back. My sources say the rest is broken up into smaller groups that keep moving north. The White House said last weekend that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – known as AMLO – has agreed to continue to work to “curb the flow of illegal aliens from Central America into Mexico.” If they reach the US border, the Biden administration has warned that the priority of processing will go to those already waiting in the asylum queue.