At the end of March, immigration advocates in Tijuana saw an influx of Ukrainian refugees seeking entry to the United States via the U.S.-Mexico border. The ports of entry between the countries, already embattled, have been inundated with asylum seekers from Northern Triangle countries likewise fleeing conditions of violence. Border zones are saturated with refugees still flooding in, and the way the U.S. has handled pleas from the various groups represented is inequitable.
“We saw Russians and Ukrainians being [both turned away and] admitted on an ad hoc basis … or sleeping outside the port of entry waiting days to be admitted,” Erika Pinheiro, an immigration attorney with Al Otro Lado in San Diego, told C.B.S. as the city began to receive Ukrainians in flight from the conflict.
Central Americans who have waited months for entry in the same border zones have faced similar discombobulation and bureaucratic confusion. With the arrival of European refugees, the already-overtaxed system is forced further beyond its capabilities and frustrations deepen.
Russians and Ukrainians making for the U.S. are seeking asylum – a dubious proposition, given that refugees who are fleeing war and other generalized conditions are not generally admitted under U.S. asylum law. Yet Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stated that “Ukrainian and Russian refugees will have their asylum claims handled on a case-by-case basis,” A.B.C. News reports. And while Europeans and Central Americans both are anxious to be granted entry, A.B.C. saw European refugees being shifted to the front of the line, based on their particular status under a new Customs and Border Patrol (C.B.P.) communication.
A statement released by the agency exempts some Ukrainians from Title 42 restrictions enacted during the Trump administration and continuously applied under Biden’s administration, proclaiming that the “unjustified Russian war … created a humanitarian crisis,” A.B.C. reports. (Other Ukrainians awaiting entry have been turned away from ports of entry under Title 42 laws, Vice adds.) Title 42 is the most recent in a series of acts passed by the Trump administration and maintained by the Biden camp, barring asylum seekers from accessing points of entry to the U.S. “Title 42 … allows C.B.P. to turn away asylum seekers without hearing their claims,” Vice explains.
The apparent malleability of border policy and asylum law is a troubling issue for a system facing such high activity, and one which already enacts its provision unequally. Mayorkas recently told reporters that “border officials have been instructed to consider using exemptions for Ukrainians rather than kicking them back to Mexico” under Title 42, Axios reports. The recommendation represents embedded prejudices of the Biden administration, the caprice of the system, and the erratic human element involved in managing refugee flows into the U.S.
The influx of Russians, Ukrainians, and others displaced by the Ukrainian conflict has burdensome implications for the U.S. refugee metering system, and likewise the asylum-granting process. And while some Eastern European arrivals are admitted within 24 hours under humanitarian exemptions, Central Americans continually face discrimination, harsh treatment, and bureaucratic obstacles – and, ultimately, are largely barred from entry. The rapid shift in refugee demographics has revealed more cracks in an overburdened system, as well as the inherent privileges it both encodes and encourages.
