“The government administration treats refugees like pawns on a political chessboard. So we want to go back to court so that we can annul the order once and for all. For families and for everyone, “Reuters quoted Noah Gottschalk from Oxfam America, which joined the joint lawsuit.
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The measure was issued in March last year by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus in the United States.
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Although Biden reversed a number of steps made by his predecessor, Donald Trump, in the area of migration policy, he retained the CDC’s measures. In addition, on Monday, his administration released an updated version, according to which the authorities will have to reconsider the regulation not in 30 days as before, but in 60 days.
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NGOs say they have been negotiating with the government for a number of months to resolve the current situation. However, according to them, the talks reached a stalemate and therefore resorted to legal action. In their view, the regulation puts many people at risk because, for example, it forces whole families to return to the border zone in Mexico, where dangerous conditions prevail.
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Possible problem for Biden
If a legal complaint to the CDC order were to succeed, it would be difficult for the police to detain and return incoming migrants, which would significantly complicate Biden’s situation, the AP writes.
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The Biden government argues that the regulation is still needed due to the rise of the contagious variant of coronavirus called delta. She also claims that there are more and more infected immigrants coming from Mexico, but did not state the exact numbers.
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According to preliminary data, the US authorities stopped about 210,000 people in July, which is the most in the last 20 years. However, the AP points out that these data are not directly comparable. Many migrants currently try to cross the border repeatedly after the border guards automatically reject them during the check, with reference to a special CDC coronavirus regulation.
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