In a significant policy move that could ease demands facing borderland organizations that regularly assist individuals and families seeking asylum, the Biden administration is reportedly looking at transporting migrants who’ve already been processed by U.S. immigration officials to regions further within the U.S., CBS News reports.
While the report said that the administration has not yet made a decision, advocates welcomed the possible news. “This was long overdue: allowing people’s journey to be as safe as possible, & reducing the pressure on border communities like El Paso & our shelters,” responded Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. “Next step should be restoring the access to asylum to ALL.”
RELATED STORY: Biden administration readies new policy intended to speed up asylum process
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When asylum-seekers are actually allowed to seek their U.S. asylum rights, they are often released to borderland non-profit organizations and churches that help them with everything from diapers, meals, and bus tickets as they continue their journeys. Many asylum-seekers already have relatives here. “The new model would use federal funds to send migrants to shelters in cities farther inside the country before they go to their final destinations,” NBC News reports. “Besides Los Angeles, they will be sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico; Houston; Dallas; and other cities.”
The report says that the proposal is jokingly being referred to as the “Abbott plan.” The right-wing governor this past spring decided that he would use asylum-seekers as human props, and bus individuals and families from Texas to Washington, D.C., as a fuck-you to the president. But some migrants bused out of Texas for free by Abbott had a message that he maybe wasn’t expecting: Thanks for the ride.
Santo Linarte López told The New York Times in late April that he didn’t have much money left after traveling from Nicaragua, with hopes to meet family in North Carolina. “He said he did not understand why Mr. Abbott was paying for him to travel north, but he was grateful.” An official told NBC News that the administration ”is taking a page from Abbott’s book and paying for buses and flights itself to alleviate overcrowding.”
Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley has been among the organizations to have aided newly arrived asylum-seekers, and for their good work, they have been inundated with hateful vitriol by hateful people.
Sister Donna Markham told Jesuit magazine America that phone calls have come “in language that I would never repeat and threatening our agencies.” That harassment happened in part because of conservative group hits. When these right-wing groups single out organizations like Catholic Charities, they know exactly what they’re doing and instigating. But Sister Norma Pimentel, who heads Catholic Charities Rio Grande Valley, told America that she’s undeterred.
“As a Catholic, I firmly believe that God desires that we care for our brothers and sisters in need, those who are suffering,” Sister Pimentel told America. “My focus remains unshaken. I refuse to be distracted from helping others. I am consoled and inspired by those who do support the work we do, who care for those who suffer and who stand up and protect and defend those in need.”
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