Washington, D.C. (March 25, 2021) - A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies examines one of the key elements of President Biden’s plan for reducing the massive surge of migrants at the United States southern border: Reviving and expanding the Central American Minors Refugee/Parole program (CAM). The new CAM in-country processing program differs from the Obama era program as it will have more outreach, but the purpose is the same: To persuade prospective illegal aliens to wait in Central America for the U.S. government to contrive a way of bringing them here "legally".
Dr. Nayla Rush, a senior researcher at the Center, said, “What the Biden administration meant by 'wait, don’t come now", is really, 'don't come this way, we are designing legal pathways that will allow us to fly you here directly'. Biden is making the same bet as Obama, using in-country processing programs to try and discourage migrants from showing up at the border. This will prove to be wrong once again. Only tough border measures, like ones set up by Trump, can discourage migrants from risky and illegal border crossings.”
View the report at: https://cis.org/Report/Bidens-Plan-Central-American-Migrants-Fly-Them-Straight-US
The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, the White House immigration bill introduced by Democrats in the House and Senate, provides insight into the Biden administration’s likely next steps. The bill's provisions suggest that a new Central American program, as designed by the Biden administration, would be threefold, with each element offering a distinct protection scheme:
- "Central American Refugee Program" would allow for refugee resettlement;
- "Central American Family Reunification Parole Program" would grant parole;
- "Central American Minors Program" would offer special immigration status.
All three programs would give access to permanent residence in the United States and would no longer be limited to nationals of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala; any other Central American country could be added to the list by the Secretary of State.
By allocating two of the three proposed programs to migrants who simply want to join family members already in the United States (and only one program for potential refugees), the administration is acknowledging that most of the border crossers are not fleeing persecution but merely using an asylum claim as a means of ordinary immigration.
"Ending CAM did not cause this surge, and re-starting it will not end the surge," Rush said. "If anything, it might make it worse."
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