With the “Remain in Mexico” policy having been cancelled on Joe Biden’s Day One, the Department of Homeland Security has now announced that on February 19 it will begin releasing into the United States 25,600 illegal migrants that had been enrolled in that program. According to the DHS, the illegals will be released in San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas; and Brownsville, Texas. The plan is that within two weeks of February 19, about 300 migrants a day will be released in both San Diego and El Paso. About 100 migrants a day will be released in Brownsville. One unnamed official described this as “starting small.”
Whether the illegals will at least be tested for the coronavirus is unclear. A press release last week said yes and some mainstream news sources agree, though internal DHS communications reviewed by Breitbart News make no mention of any such testing. Currently, illegal border crossers are known to be released without being tested.
There are no plans to keep track of the illegal migrants as they spread out from the border into America.
The new figure of 25.6K refers only to asylum seekers that had heretofore been required to remain in Mexico to await a decision on their applications. Those apprehended while illegally crossing the border since the rescinding of Remain in Mexico are already being released, immediately and in large numbers. In the first 10 days of February, for example, DHS released at least 2,000 into the country.
Since the introduction of Remain in Mexico in January 2019, about 70,000 asylum seekers have been enrolled. Those that will be admitted starting February 19 are just a subset, though it is not clear how many are still waiting along the Mexican side of the border. Some may have gone home, while others undoubtedly made successful crossings later.
As usual with the Biden administration, this announcement was accompanied by warnings to would-be asylees that “now is not the time” and that the move “should not be interpreted as an opening for people to migrate irregularly to the United States.” Those words, however, are falling on deaf ears among the vast community of would-be U.S. residents, in Mexico and elsewhere. For example, the announcement was celebrated in a sprawling migrant camp in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville. “I’ve been reading all the articles,” said Salvadoran asylum seeker Sandra Andrade. “I have no words for how I’m feeling right now!”
Joe Biden’s promises during the campaign and his rhetoric since are coming back to bite him. His predecessor was impeached, then later cleared, for allegedly encouraging a few hundred citizens to enter the U.S. Capitol building. Joe, on the other hand, is deliberately releasing thousands of noncitizens–most without even rudimentary health testing–into the country at large. Whether Joe wanted a surge or not, one is surely coming.
For more, see Breitbart News.