Article 42 has been replaced by a package of measures that includes imposing severe penalties on illegal immigrants, banning them from entering the United States, and sometimes criminal charges.
Attempts to illegally cross the southern border of the United States have continued to decline since new policies were introduced last week to deal with illegal immigrants, a US official said Wednesday.
Blas Nunez-Neto, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, said the Border Patrol had counted fewer than 4,000 “confrontations”, detentions, expulsions, and people crossing without permission in the past two days.
He told reporters that the figure was 10,100 crossing attempts per day in the week before the lifting of Article 42 of the COVID-19 health emergency that had been invoked for three years to prevent the rapid entry of large numbers of migrants.
Article 42
Article 42 was replaced by a package of measures that includes imposing severe penalties on illegal immigrants, banning them from entering the United States, and sometimes criminal charges.
This was coupled with the expansion of formal avenues for immigration to the United States, with a particular focus on refugees and asylum seekers.
The goal was to stop pressure at the border, where more than 200,000 immigrants were registered over the past year, causing a political crisis for President Joe Biden.
Núñez-Neto noted that last week’s immigration policy change appears to have achieved the goal of reducing illegal immigration.
The number of Mexicans trying to enter fell from 1,900 to 1,000 per day, and Colombians from 1,400 to 510.
The number of Venezuelan immigrants has also dropped to 50 per day, from 2,400 before the policy change.
Monitor the situation at the border
The number of 4,000 encounters per day with immigrants that was recorded is lower than the average of 7,000 encounters in April.
In addition, Núñez-Neto said there are signs of a slowing movement of migrants northward from South and Central America to the Mexico-US border.
Instead, “tens of thousands” have applied for interviews with US Customs and Border Patrol, and more than 5,000 people’s cases have been “processed” since May 12, he said.
He confirmed that many Haitians, Venezuelans and Cubans benefit from a special program for immigration as refugees that requires them to apply from abroad.
“I want to stress again that it is still too early to draw any firm conclusions here about where these trends will go in the coming days and weeks,” Nunez-Neto said.
“We continue to monitor the situation at our borders, in Mexico and along transit routes in real time,” he added.
