Will mass-incursion tactics test Biden’s promises of a kinder, gentler immigration agenda?
Almost lost in the distractions of the holiday weekend, on the night of December 29 up to 400 mostly Cuban migrants forced their way pastMexican immigration and over payment turnstiles on the Paso del Norte Bridge from Ciudad Juarez with a desire to force their way into downtown El Paso, Texas, according to news reporting. (Some video of the attempted incursion is here and here.)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mobile Field Force officers met them in riot gear and used concrete blocks tipped by concertina wire to block the onslaught mid-bridge as many of the migrants chanted “Biden! Biden!” Many demanded they be let in to live in the United States while they pursue asylum claims, instead of waiting in Mexico as required under various policies of President Donald Trump.
But with Trump still presiding, the blocked migrants with Biden on their minds were forced to listen to a recorded message broadcast over loudspeakers in Spanish and English warning that any further trouble would be met by force, arrests, and prosecution. That went on until the crowd dispersed at about dawn on December 30.
A source told the Center for Immigration Studies that CBP and Mexican authorities on the international bridge to the Del Rio, Texas, port of entry broke up another, smaller migrant formation demanding U.S. entry. Otherwise, the extent to which the attempted incursions occurred elsewhere along the southern border remains unclear at this time. But a question naturally arises from these events.
Do attempted mass incursions like these foreshadow a new flash point and tactic whereby untold tens of thousands of migrants inside Mexico can quickly test the new Biden administration on its many campaign promises of a kinder and gentler approach toward them? It bears watching.
Broader Implications of the Mass-Incursion Tactic for Incoming President Biden
This was not the first time CBP under Donald Trump has forcefully responded to surging migrants hoping to overrun the port of entry at El Paso and will almost certainly not be the last there or elsewhere.
Especially not now, judging by the chants and media interviews on the Paso del Norte Bridge this time about Biden’s many immigration promises heard widely throughout the Americas and beyond, including an amnesty bill, an end to deportations, and reversal of Trump immigration policies during his first 100 days in office. While sharp analysts like my CIS colleague Mark Krikorian judge that Biden is likely to slow-boil the frog on some of his immigration promises for pragmatic political reasons, what was said on the international bridge during the recent confrontation confirms that migrants don’t necessarily pay close attention to in-the-weeds political timing so much as big, broad, and directional messages.
The migrants on that bridge showed up with high expectations that the coming Biden administration somehow had already managed to swing open the gates as promised, never mind that Trump still has a few weeks to go.
The Mexican newspaper El Sol de Parral quoted Enrique Valenzuela, head of the Chihuahua State Council for Population and Migration, who was at the bridge last week, as saying a false social media rumor that the Americans would start letting migrants pass through that night easily sparked the event. He said that happened because “there is expectation, there is hope and there is enthusiasm in them [sic] who believe that with the change of administration comes new measures and that they will immediately enter and there will be new conditions that will allow them to request asylum.”
Raul Pino Gonzalez of Havana was quoted at the bridge saying: “They should let us pass. We are calling out to Mexico and the U.S. and to Biden, the new U.S. president, to remind him of the presidential campaign promises he made. To make him aware we are here.”
While events like this have happened before, time and place make these fresh mass-entry attempts very different. At issue with the mass-incursion tactic is whether the new administration will show similarly stiff, riot-gear resolve toward follow-on attempts, or let them pass to avoid the look of forceful confrontation.
In this Hobson’s choice, the Biden administration would face the politically bitter prospect that violent confrontations would be among its first interactions with migrants. Should the administration choose the obvious alternative of letting such groups pass on the bridges or elsewhere, it would naturally follow that any successful breach would only inspire more, which could quickly spiral into a nationally hurtful border crisis, given the vast populations of frustrated, angry migrants in Mexico and far beyond at the moment.
A Large Reservoir of Frustrated Migrants in Mexico Pulsing with Biden Hope
While the exact number of migrants pooled up in Mexico is not clear, the reservoir of people who would enter through any first breach is clearly vast and deep.
Several Trump policies that Biden promises to reverse have forced economic migrants who’d use the asylum system to attain American prosperity to wait in Mexico since the summer of 2019. One of those policies, the Migrant Protection Protocols (also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program), has returned some 70,000 mostly economic migrants to Mexico to wait for their mostly meritless asylum claims to process, preventing them from disappearing inside the United States after judges inevitably decline those claims. More here.
Republicans’ Georgia election troubles went deep down the ballot last month, including losing two sheriff’s jobs that flipped to Democrats, both of whom have promised to end cooperative agreements with ICE.
Craig Owens, the winner in Cobb County, has said he wants to suspend all dealings with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Keybo Taylor, in Gwinnett County, hasn’t gone that far but is planning to cancel the 287(g) agreement that effectively deputizes the county’s officers to begin the deportation process for deportable migrants booked into local jails.
The results could be devastating to ICE.
Gwinnett this year ranks third of all U.S. counties in migrants flagged for deportation, with the vast majority of those coming out of the 287(g) program.
In Athens-Clarke County doesn’t take part in 287(g), but the incoming sheriff, who unseated a fellow Democrat in a primary this year, campaigned on a promise of refusing other forms of cooperation with ICE, effectively creating a sanctuary.
Named after the section of immigration law that created it, the 287(g) program allows ICE to sign partnership agreements with state and local law enforcement. Officers and deputies go through ICE training and can then begin the deportation process for migrants who come through their prisons or jails and are removable under the law.
There used to be another side to 287(g). The task force model trained officers and deputies who went out on patrol, but the Obama administration canceled those agreements.
The Obama team did, though, see value in the jail model. It argued that immigrants with rap sheets were worthy targets for deportation.
Immigrant rights activists disagree. They say too many migrants are being snared for what they consider to be relatively low-level offenses.
Activists have pressured some of the country’s largest jurisdictions to withdraw from the program and, in many cases, to refuse cooperation at all.
Prince William County in Virginia allowed its 287(g) program to lapse this summer. Los Angeles County’s sheriff canceled all cooperation in August.
All told, 28 jurisdictions have ended 287(g) deals, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
Still, more jurisdictions are enrolled now than were at the start off the Trump administration, thanks to strenuous efforts by ICE and sheriffs who see value in cooperating.
In Gwinnett, Sheriff Butch Conway decided to step down after 24 years and didn’t run this year. He said the 287(g) program cut his jail population over the past decade, even as the county grew by more than 300,000 residents.
He said working with ICE helped keep the deportation agency’s own efforts focused on criminals while protecting illegal immigrants who managed to keep clean rap sheets.
“I had been with ICE prior to implementing the program when they attempted to apprehend subjects and took anyone at the location they found without documentation into custody to be deported. Under 287(g), this didn’t occur,” Sheriff Conway told The Washington Times.
Neither Mr. Taylor nor Mr. Owens responded to multiple requests for comment from The Washington Times, but both confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this month that they will follow through on their promises to curtail cooperation.
The Times reached out to a number of Georgia-based migrant rights groups, but none replied for this article.
Not all will go free if Mr. Taylor holds to his promise to cooperate with ICE detainer requests. But without deputies on duty 24/7, some will be released without ICE having a chance to pick them up.
ICE is still holding out hope for some cooperation…