New Delhi: Biden administration has last week asked the Supreme Court to delay the ending of Title 42 until at least 27 December citing ongoing preparations for an influx of migrants and the upcoming holiday weekend. However, there is no update on the status of Title 42 as of now.
Since March 2020, Title 42 has allowed US border agents to immediately turn away migrants who have crossed the southern border illegally, all in the name of Covid-19 prevention.
Migrants find a little Christmas cheer
After fleeing violence in their Guatemalan town, but with their way to relatives in California blocked by continuing U.S. asylum restrictions, a family of 15 joined an Advent candlelight ceremony organized by their shelter just south of the border.
The evening service in the Buen Samaritano shelter’s small Methodist church, which doubles as cafeteria, didn’t quite compare with the weekslong Christmas celebrations they had loved in Nueva Concepcion. Those included fireworks, tamales made with freshly slaughtered pig and shared door-to-door with family, and villagers carrying aloft a statue of the Virgin Mary from the Catholic church to different homes each day, singing all the way.
“It’s difficult to leave those traditions behind, but they had to be abandoned at any rate,” said Marlon Cruz, 25, who had been a yucca and plantain farmer in Guatemala. “When you go from house to house and hear shots, because of that we would stay locked up at home.”
Tens of thousands of migrants who fled violence and poverty in their home countries are spending Christmas in crowded shelters or on the streets of Mexican border towns, where organized crime routinely targets them. It is especially cold for those living outside since winter temperatures have plunged over much of the U.S. and across the border.
The city’s shelters are already packed beyond capacity, leaving little time for celebrations and many migrants camped out in the streets in below-freezing weather.
Migrants dropped near VP Harris home on frigid Christmas Eve
Three buses of recent migrant families arrived from Texas near the home of Vice President Kamala Harris in record-setting cold on Christmas Eve.
Texas authorities have not confirmed their involvement, but the bus drop-offs are in line with previous actions by border-state governors calling attention to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
The buses that arrived late Saturday outside the vice president’s residence were carrying around 110 to 130 people, according to Tatiana Laborde, managing director of SAMU First Response, a relief agency working with the city of Washington to serve thousands of migrants who have been dropped off in recent months.
Local organizers had expected the buses to arrive Sunday but found out Saturday that the group would get to Washington early, Laborde said. The people on board included young children.
Some were wearing T-shirts despite temperatures hovering around 15 degrees Fahrenheit (-9 degrees Celsius). It was the coldest Christmas Eve on record for Washington, according to the Washington Post.
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