DHS Secretary explains how migrants should enter the US to avoid deportation

• DHS Secretary Mayorkas explains how migrants should enter the US.
• He asks them not to take unnecessary risks.
• “It is so tragic to see people risk their lives.”

How migrants should enter the US. The secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, stated on Tuesday that migrants trying to enter the US must do so in a certain way to avoid being sent back.

According to EFE, Mayorkas held a meeting with the foreign ministers of Colombia and Panama to discuss the migration crisis through the dangerous Darien Gap, the natural border between the two Latin American countries. The first Latino DHS secretary said there is no alternative to legal action.

How migrants should enter the US

The secretary asked that immigrants enter the US through «legal channels» or they will be returned to the other side of the border.

“There is a very important message to send in addition to the fact that we are building legal roads so that people do not have to risk their lives in Darién Gap and that is that we are enforcing our laws at the border,” the secretary stated.

“It is so tragic to see people risk their lives”

“It is so tragic to see people risk their lives, take the perilous journey, suffer the trauma, put their life savings in the hands of traffickers who only seek their own profit, only to be returned,” said Mayorkas, who is originally from Cuba.

“And those are the individuals, the human beings who survived to tell the tale of the trauma of the journey. We also think of the people who didn’t make it. That is exactly why we are generating legal channels so that they can come to the United States in a safe and orderly manner in search of a better life,” he explained to EFE.

“The most powerful example of success”

Mayorkas highlighted as «the most powerful example of success» of this legal path, the creation of a humanitarian permit program for nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. He recently revealed this measure which could mean a 95% reduction in arrests of individuals from these countries on the border.

«We have already received thousands and thousands of people in this way,» the secretary told EFE. On the other hand, the US official also said that they are «expanding» legal channels, both through their refugee program and through humanitarian permits for nationals of those four countries affected by economic or political instability.

Secretary Mayorkas reveals additional legal channels for entering the US

“We will be revealing in the coming weeks the additional routes that people must take” to be able to travel to the United States legally, Mayorkas announced. The Secretary of Homeland Security also recalled that migrants have other ways to travel legally to US territory, such as visas for seasonal workers, or for agricultural or non-agricultural workers for limited periods to «earn money legally.»

In addition, next month the Biden administration will lift the controversial Title 42, a health measure imposed by the Trump administration that allows the hot expulsions of migrants at the border, according to EFE. «We are concerned that there may be an increase in the level of migration» due to the lifting of that measure, Mayorkas acknowledged, but his advisers pointed out that the basis of the country’s immigration law, which is contemplated in Title 8, will continue to be fully in force.