IRTF News

May 23 was to be the end of a shameful chapter in the recent history of human rights in the United States. Back on April 1, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had determined that the COVID-19 pandemic had eased sufficiently to make the so-called “Title 42” border policy unnecessary. So far in 2022, U.S. immigration courts have granted asylum or other relief in 48.4 percent of the 23,590 cases they have heard. Title 42 has prevented tens of thousands of other cases from even being filed. This means there is a gigantic probability that the pandemic measure, which did not expire on May 23, has sent many people back to severe harm or death. This is the most serious consequence of keeping Title 42 in place. But there are others.

Many Latin American and Caribbean governments are unhappy with the US government’s decision to exclude Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua from the summit. Countries throughout the hemisphere have grown accustomed to US double standards where democracy and human rights protections are flaunted. Who can forget that the United States managed to have Cuba expelled from the Organization of American States (OAS) but never batted an eye over the memberships of Chile under Augusto Pinochet, Argentina under Jorge Rafael Videla, or Guatemala under Rios Montt, to name but a few murderous governments?

Discussions about the possible installation of an International Commission Against Corruption and Impunity (CICIH) —president Xiomara Castro's campaign promise— has stirred up lobbying to control the Judiciary and the Public Ministry.  There are intense movements in the National Congress to adjust the election processes of the Attorney General and the 15 new magistrates of the CSJ in 2023. To analyze this situation, the experiences of the CICIG in Guatemala and of the CICIES in El Salvador are useful, as they are similar commissions despite being in different contexts. 

The decision of a federal judge that forced the United States to continue the immediate expulsion of migrants under Title 42 placed Ciudad Juárez on the cusp of a new humanitarian crisis, due to the daily increase in the migrant population on this border. The flow of more than 100 expelled per day from U.S. territory under Title 42 and the growing arrival of migrants waiting to cross the border has the shelters close to being saturated. Hundreds of other migrants are in spaces that they rent on their own in hotels or homes, while others live in houses in abandoned conditions. Even with the continuation of Title 42, officials are concerned the massive concentration of migrants in this community will continue to increase due to the expulsion of people from the north and those who continue to arrive from the south.

Mexican immigration agents can no longer conduct stop and search operations on buses and highways after the country’s supreme court ruled that such checks are racist, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional. The landmark ruling, handed down in Mexico City on Wednesday, found in favour of three young Indigenous Mexicans who were detained and abused by immigration (INM) officials in 2015 during a US-backed crackdown. “The decision represents an opportunity to stop the discriminatory and racist practices by immigration authorities and the national guard who utilize racial profiling to detect migrants, that have led to arbitrary detentions of both immigrants and Mexicans,” said Gretchen Kuhner, director of the Institute for Women in Migration which helped bring the case.

District Judge Robert Summerhays granted an injunction to Republican state attorneys challenging the halting of checks known as Title 42. Aimed at stopping virus spread in migrant holding facilities, Title 42 was twice extended by President Biden. More than 1.7 million people have been expelled under the policy. On Friday, Judge Summerhays in Lafayette, Louisiana, ruled that the policy would stay in place while a lawsuit by more than 20 states played out in court.

On May  20, a federal court in Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to end Title 42. This decision means that the United States Border Patrol is required to continue to expel migrants immediately upon encounter, thus, denying refugees access to asylum or other humanitarian relief. “We are greatly dismayed by the court’s decision to continue to deny asylum seekers their right to seek safety,” stated the Quixote Center in response. “Title 42 is a failed policy that has been proven to do nothing to prevent the spread of COVID-19, nor has it been effective at deterring migration. There have been 1,934,097 expulsions under Title 42 since it went into effect in March of 2020.”