What's Happening Now: Migrants Caught Between Belarus and Poland, MPP Restarting Soon, and Senate Holds DHS Oversight Hearing
Immigration is a quickly evolving topic, so today I want to zoom out and draw your attention to three things to watch for in the news.
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Migrants Stuck Between Belarus and Poland
In the past few days, migrants mainly from Middle Eastern countries who are seeking asylum in Europe have been used by Belarus’s president Alexander Lukashenko to provoke tensions with other European countries. Belarus—which is *not* an EU member state—allowed migrants to enter the country, then funneled them towards the EU through its border with Poland. Reporting shows that Belarus’s military has actively encouraged, helped, and even forced migrants to attempt to cross the Polish border unlawfully. In response, Poland has sent security personnel to the border to prevent migrants from entering, creating a standoff with Belarus with migrants effectively “kettled” in the middle of the two countries. Just yesterday, the New York Times reported that Poland was using water cannons to drive migrants back into Belarus. CNN provides an on-the-ground look here:
Migrant Protection Protocols Set to Restart Soon
The migrant protection protocols could restart very soon, resulting in asylum seekers being forced to once again remain in Mexico for their asylum hearing in court. MPP was a Trump-era program that forced asylum seekers to remain in Mexico. The Biden administration suspended the program in January, then formally ended the program on June 1. But a federal judge has ordered the administration to restart the program. Title 42 is already turning back the vast majority of migrants, including many asylum seekers.
I wrote yesterday that a few MPP cases were added to the MPP docket in October. But then yesterday, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice filed documents in court that claim that Mexico is close to signing off on the program’s re-implementation. Mexico’s role in MPP has been largely understated but remember: Mexico is a sovereign nation, and where immigration policies like MPP touch on foreign policy, this requires the acquiescence or participation of that foreign government. Sandra Sanchez from Border Report has a useful write-up here with a link to the DOJ’s recent court filing.
Senate Oversight Hearing on Department of Homeland Security
Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee held an oversight hearing for the Department of Homeland Security. I am linking to the American Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick’s live-tweet thread below for a SparkNotes version of the hearing. Most of you will not watch an entire congressional oversight hearing or ever read a Twitter thread on the topic. But I include it here anyway for those of you who want to ‘level up’ your immigration game. Believe it or not, it can be worth it, because you really start to learn the key players and big ideas (and false narratives!) driving the national immigration debate in a way that you just can’t when you’re reading one-off stories and tweets about the news.
