WASHINGTON – The United States on Wednesday reiterated to undocumented immigrants seeking to enter its territory that this “is not the time to come” and warned that most of those who cross the border will be turned away.

“Now is not the time to come and the vast majority of people will be turned away,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki during her daily press conference.

The official assured that this situation is due to the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that the government of President Joe Biden, who took power on January 20, has not had the time to launch a “comprehensive and humane process to prosecute people arriving at the border. ”

“Asylum processes at the border will not happen immediately and will take time to implement,” he added.

The White House spokeswoman admitted that it is a “sensitive issue” for the president himself, but admitted that they need “time” to put in place and partners to implement “a comprehensive process and system that will allow processing at the border of the asylum seekers “.

On January 20, the Biden government announced the suspension, as of the next day, of registrations in the “Stay in Mexico” program, which allowed the government of its predecessor, Donald Trump, to return applicants to the neighboring country of asylum.

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The Biden administration also announced that “current participants” of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, “as this initiative that Trump implemented in January 2019 was called,” must remain where they are, waiting for more official information from US government officials. ”

Under the “Stay in Mexico” program, the Trump administration sent more than 60,000 undocumented people who crossed the border to wait in Mexico for their appointments before immigration judges, a process that can take months.

Trump implemented that policy after the rebound in arrests on the border with Mexico, which in May 2019 reached the historical level of 132,856 cases.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also clarified that day that the “current non-essential COVID-19 travel restrictions, both at the border and in the region, remain in effect at this time.”

Reacting to the announcement, the deputy director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice project, Efrén Olivares, criticized the Biden administration for continuing the expulsion process that his predecessor undertook under Title 42.

That provision, issued in March 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, notes that Customs and Border Protection ( CBP) can forcibly return migrants who have entered the US illegally across the border, without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum or protection.

“The invocation of Title 42 was a barely veiled intolerant and xenophobic action that has achieved its objective of cutting off access to asylum for thousands of people, concealed under the pretense of protecting public health,” said Olivares.

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