Biden admin to set up migrant processing centers in Latin America to reduce border strain

The Biden administration on Thursday announced plans to establish immigration processing centers throughout Latin America to help slow down the number of migrants coming to the U.S.

The regional processing centers in Guatemala and Colombia should be up and running in the coming weeks, senior administration officials told reporters on a press call previewing the announcement. The officials said additional details will be announced in the coming weeks about how many centers they will set up as they negotiate with additional countries. A memo obtained by POLITICO suggested that other hubs could be in Ecuador and eventually Costa Rica.

The U.S. will screen migrants at these centers and determine if they qualify for entry before the migrants can try to move on to the U.S. southern border. If eligible, migrants will be referred for refugee resettlement or other lawful pathways such as parole programs, family reunification or existing labor pathways. Migrants will also receive local information about host countries and available social services.

Canada and Spain have agreed to accept referrals from the processing centers, officials said.

News of the centers comes just two weeks before a seismic shake-up in border policy, the lifting of Title 42. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will announce details at a joint press conference Thursday morning at the State Department. The White House will also release a fact sheet about the regional processing centers and other efforts to prepare for the May 11 end of Title 42, the Trump-era border policy that has been used more than 2 million times to expel asylum-seeking migrants on public health grounds.

The processing centers are just one piece of the administration’s multi-pronged response as the White House tries to strike a balance of deterrence with creating additional legal pathways. Officials also announced the expansion of the family reunification parole program to include Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Colombia, a program previously only available to Cubans and Haitians.

“[It’s] a significant plan that is really at a level of ambition and scale that has never been done before,” a senior administration official told reporters. “However, there is far more that we could do if we had the cooperation of Congress. They have really tied our hands, and so we really do appeal to Congress to work with us.”

The White House has been intensely planning for the end of Title 42 since before the New Year, weighing a patchwork of policy solutions. May, already the historically busiest month for migration, is expected to bring one of the greatest policy challenges yet for the White House. And the timing falls at a challenging political moment for President Joe Biden, who just launched his 2024 reelection campaign.

The efforts to expand legal pathways and expedite processing will be paired with deterrence measures — in an effort to build upon the humanitarian parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, which officials tout as a success story in bringing border numbers down. The program for these groups will continue, officials said, including the expulsion to Mexico of those who try to enter the U.S. unlawfully.

In place of Title 42, officials also plan to rely on a new rule that will bar some migrants from applying for asylum in the U.S. if they cross the border illegally or fail to first apply for safe harbor in another country. The administration has been working to finalize and implement the rule — a version of a Trump-era policy often called the “transit ban” — before May 11.

The administration will also expand expedited removal processes under Title 8, officials said Thursday, which would allow the government to remove from the country anyone unable to establish a legal basis — such as an approved asylum claim.

“With this shift from Title 42 to Title 8, it does not mean that the border is open,” a senior administration official said Thursday. “Returning to regular order under Title 8 means that we will once again be able to impose significant consequences on those who fail to avail themselves of the many legal pathways that we have announced today and that already exist.”

The Biden administration has 24,000 agents and officers at the border and is hiring an additional 300 border patrol agents this year. They’re also prepping Custom and Border Protection facilities to include spaces for interviews with asylum officers, immigration judges and for counsel purposes.