The expected administration of a President Joe Biden is trying to prevent a growing migrant caravan from Honduras from entering the country, telling the immigrants that they will not be welcomed at the southern border.
Thousands are currently marching toward the U.S. southern border in the hopes that Biden will let them enter the country as he eases President Donald Trump’s asylum restrictions.
But on Sunday, an unnamed Biden transition official said these migrants “need to understand they’re not going to be able to come into the U.S. immediately,” according to NBC News.
While there’s “help on the way,” now “is not the time to make the journey,” the official added.
“The situation at the border isn’t going to be transformed overnight,” the official said. “We have to provide a message that health and hope is on the way, but coming right now does not make sense for their own safety…while we put into place processes that they may be able to access in the future.”
As many as 8,000 migrants from Honduras have entered Guatemala since Friday, according to Guatemala’s immigration authority.
Activists representing the caravan are demanding that Biden “honor” his commitment to welcome them into the U.S.
“We recognize the importance of the incoming Government of the United States having shown a strong commitment to migrants and asylum seekers, which presents an opportunity for the governments of Mexico and Central America to develop policies and a migration management that respect and promote the human rights of the population in mobility,” Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an activist group advocating for open borders immigration, said in a statement. “We will advocate that the Biden government honors its commitments.”
Guatemalan authorities have detained hundreds of Honduran migrants from the caravan already, but their numbers continue to grow.
Caravan from Honduras busting through Guatemala Border in route to the USApic.twitter.com/ZSdFqGLzxb
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) January 16, 2021
A group from the Central American migrant caravan forcefully push past border patrol in Guatemala. pic.twitter.com/5ALDRclVPI
— The Hill (@thehill) January 16, 2021
Biden has promised to provide a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. within his first 100 days in office, as well as place a moratorium on decorations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But now his advisers are now clarifying that these changes don’t mean illegal immigrants are suddenly free to cross the border.
“Migrants and asylum seekers absolutely should not believe those in the region peddling the idea that the border will suddenly be fully open to process everyone on Day 1. It will not,” Biden’s domestic policy advisor Susan Rice said.
When he was campaigning, Biden slammed Trump for this exact kind of rhetoric, calling it “xenophobia.”
“This is the first president in the United States of America that said anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. That’s never happened before in America,” Biden said during his first presidential debate against Trump. “They’re shaking in squalor on the other side of the river.”
