Mayorkas Warns Migrants: Border Remains Closed

Smugglers are claiming that the U.S.-Mexico border will be wide open after the Title 42 pandemic policy ends Thursday, but Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is warning immigrants not to listen to their lies.

“Smugglers have long been hard at work spreading false information that the border will be open after May 11,” Mayorkas said during a press conference Wednesday, reports The Hill. “It will not be. They are lying.”

He also urged people who are thinking of traveling to the United States’ southern border to know that smugglers “care only about profit, not people.”

“They do not care about you or your well-being,” Mayorkas said, telling migrants in his message that they should not risk their lives or their money to travel to the United States “only to be removed” if they arrive in the United States illegally.

“Do not believe their lies.”

He also commented that the DHS is starting a digital advertising campaign in Central and South America to “counter the lies of the smugglers with accurate information about U.S. immigration laws.”

Smugglers control the migratory paths, Mayorkas added, but the United States is working on ways to cut them out and “reach qualifying individuals where they are,” as the United States is “building lawful pathways” for them.

Title 42 was put in place under former President Donald Trump as a health order to allow migrants to be expelled during concerns about the spread of COVID. However, the national emergency declaration on the disease has since expired, so the processing of immigrants has returned to the system that was used under Title 8.

Under those rules, migrants removed from the United States face a minimum ban of five years before they can legally return, and they can face criminal prosecution if they are found once again trying to enter the country once they have been expelled.

Mayorkas’ department is also starting a new rule that assumes that people who aren’t using legal means to enter the United States are not eligible to seek asylum. This will allow migrants to be expelled if they don’t “establish a reasonable fear of persecution or torture in the country of removal.” DHS says that the rule is aimed to encourage people to use legal pathways to enter the country.

The new rule will take effect just after Title 42 is lifted at just before midnight Thursday.

Mayorkas further announced that the administration will be “surging personnel to the border” to help local law enforcement officials with the expected rush of migrants when Title 42 ends. The administration also will be opening regional processing centers in migrants’ home countries to deal with establishing legal pathways to the United States.