‘Pres. Trump is making your safety his #1 priority…’
AP Photo: Migrants return to Mexico.
(Liberty Headlines) A Trump administration official said Sunday that illegal border crossings have dropped by half as the strictest U.S.-Mexico border policies yet went into place amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Anyone caught crossing the border illegally is to be immediately returned back to Mexico or Canada, according to the new restrictions based on an order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Friday.
According to Mark Morgan, the acting head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the decision applies to all migrants.
“We’re not going to take you into our custody,” he said Sunday on Fox News. “We don’t know anything about you. You have no documents, we’re not going to take you into our facilities and expose you to CBP personnel and the American people as well as immigrants.”
But Mexican officials have said they would only take people from Mexico and Central America and only those who are encountered straight away — not people already in custody.
“If people who are not Mexican or Central American are returned to us, Mexico would not accept them,” Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said Friday in Spanish. “The United States will take care of that.”
The majority of people crossing the border are from Central America, but not all. For example, there were some 6,000 Brazilians and nearly 1,200 Chinese who arrived between January and February this year, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
But it’s not entirely clear what happens to those people. Morgan said the migrants should be “expeditiously” returned to the country they came from.
CDC on Friday issued an order in effect for 30 days that bars anyone coming illegally in part because migrants are held in close quarters and there isn’t enough proper staffing or space to keep them at a safe distance and to screen for the illness.
Plus, migrants who are suspected of having COVID-19 are sent to local hospitals, possibly further infecting others, the CDC warned.
The borders remain open, according to Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, but only to facilitate trade; the U.S. has about $3 billion per day with Canada and Mexico. Tourists and shoppers were asked to stay home.
Wolf said Sunday on Fox News that it was important to “keep supply chains open,” but to do it in a careful and considerate way that would “limit the introduction and spread of the virus.”
Immigration enforcement has wide latitude on when to release migrants. Earlier this year, Homeland Security officials said they would detain families as long as possible in an effort to discourage migrants from crossing the border. Most families are held 20 days.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough.
For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. More than 300,000 have been infected worldwide.
Almost all people recover from the new virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.
Curbing immigration has been a signature policy of Trump’s, and he’s tried to block asylum seekers before but failed after courts ruled against him. On Sunday, a text from his re-election campaign read: “Pres. Trump is making your safety his #1 priority. That’s why we’re closing BORDERS to illegals.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.
