Developments
The New York Times reported from an open air holding site in the mountains east of San Diego, California, where asylum seekers often must wait outdoors for days for the opportunity to turn themselves in to Border Patrol. Agents provide no shelter, food, water, and medical care; that is up to volunteers. The situation threatens the migrants’ health, and “a Federal District Court judge in California could rule as early as Friday on whether the government is legally required to shelter and feed the children as they wait.”
- Emily Baumgaertner, “Health Concerns Mount for Migrant Children at Outdoor Holding Sites” (The New York Times, March 28, 2024).
Ten humanitarian organizations in Mexico City warned of the increasingly precarious situation of migrants from many countries stranded in Mexico’s capital. Most are attempting to secure online CBP One appointments at U.S.-Mexico border ports of entry.
- “Situacion Migratoria en la Ciudad de Mexico y Zona Metropolitana” (Ten Organizations, March 28, 2024).
Nicaragua Investiga covered the Migrant Via Crucis march and protest in Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state. At least 2,000 migrants stranded near Mexico’s southern border began walking through the state on Monday, though their numbers have since dwindled. “Some of the participants in the mobilization claim that their goal is to reach Mexico City, but these marches generally disintegrate as they become too strenuous and as the authorities hand out [travel] permits while they are en route.”
- “«Viacrucis del Migrante», Miles Marchan en Mexico para Denunciar la «Crueldad»” (Nicaragua Investiga, March 28, 2024).
The House of Representatives’ Republican leadership will send the Senate articles of impeachment for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on April 10. The move comes nearly two full months after the House impeached Mayorkas, by a one-vote party-line margin on their second try. Republican leaders allege that Mayorkas has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” by not carrying out border and migration law to its fullest extent (which would cost far more than the amount of money that Congress appropriates). The Democratic-majority Senate could dismiss the case without going to a trial.
- Jordain Carney, Olivia Beavers, Ursula Perano, “House Gop Says When It Will Send Mayorkas Impeachment Articles to Senate” (Politico, March 28, 2024).
Analyses and Feature Stories
Jonathan Blitzer’s recent book about Central America, U.S. policy, and migration “effectively illustrates the timidity and opportunism of the US political class, which has repeatedly blocked reforms that would allow an orderly and safe flow of workers and their families across the border,” reads a lengthy review by Hector Tobar in the New York Review of Books.
- Hector Tobar, “The Truths of Our American Empire” (The New York Review of Books, March 28, 2024).
Jacobin published an adapted excerpt of Petra Molnar’s book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. The deployment of military-grade surveillance technologies along the border, Molnar argues, treats a humanitarian issue like a security crisis and ends up diverting migrants to more remote and dangerous areas, inflating an already high death toll.
- Petra Molnar, “The Grim High-Tech Dystopia on the Us-Mexico Border” (York University, Jacobin, March 28, 2024).
On the Right
- Parker Miller, “Biden Needs to Pressure Mexico Into Helping to Stop Illegal Immigration” (The Washington Examiner, March 28, 2024).
- Carl Campanile, “Us Foreign-Born Population Shatters Record as Border Crisis Escalates” (The New York Post, March 28, 2024).