US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas commanded potential immigrants abroad not to come to the US in a video posted to Twitter Tuesday.
“Do not come to the border,” Mayorkas demanded in the footage. “Families encountered will continue to be expelled… under Title 42.”
But not all families are created equal–at least according to the DHS. In March, Mayorkas issued a memo which, according to CBS News, “is designed to remind Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers that their power to exempt certain migrants from Title 42… applies to Ukrainians seeking U.S. refuge.”
Since the establishment of the pandemic-related clause in 2020, Title 42 has reportedly been invoked to deport nearly 1.8 million immigrants–the vast majority of them from Latin American nations.
In late April, US President Joe Biden announced a “humanitarian parole program” known as “Uniting for Ukraine,” which his administration said will “provide an expedient channel for secure legal migration from Europe to the United States for Ukrainians who have a U.S. sponsor.”
The DHS described the “streamlined process” accorded to the privileged potential immigrants as the fulfillment of “President Biden’s commitment to welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainians.”
Secretary Mayorkas has denied there’s a double standard in the US treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees, but immigrant rights activists have reacted with outrage after reportedly watching thousands of Ukrainians cross the border in just days, with few apparent hurdles.
“We have rights as migrants to cross the border just like the Ukrainians,” said one demonstrator at an April 29th protest held outside the US consulate in Tijuana denouncing the discriminatory policy.
“We’ve seen people from other countries given access, but it’s not fair we can’t get in,” another protester explained to Border Report.
When the selective easing of Title 42 restrictions for Ukrainians was announced in March, the associate director of the immigration advocacy group Human Rights First expressed similar indignation:
“Where were the exemptions for Haitian asylum-seekers arriving last fall? Where are those exemptions… for asylum-seekers from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras?”
With no end in sight as Biden signs off on another $40 Billion in mostly military aid to Ukraine, it seems everyone from the Palestinians shot dead for demanding a state of their own to American mothers relying on GoFundMe to feed their infants will be forced to continue asking similar questions.