Trump Extends Border Emergency Order As Migrant Caravan Heads to U.S.

President Donald Trump has extended his declared emergency at the United States southern border to be in effect until February 2022. The decision to extend the emergency comes as a caravan of migrants moves north through Central America toward the U.S. in anticipation of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

In a Jan. 26 announcement, Trump said the extension of the emergency is necessary to address the “ongoing border security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border.”

“The executive branch has taken steps to address the crisis, but further action is needed to address the humanitarian crisis and to control unlawful migration and the flow of narcotics and criminals across the southern border of the United States,” the President said, adding:

For these reasons, the national emergency declared on February 15, 2019, and the measures adopted on that date to respond to that emergency, must continue in effect beyond February 15, 2021. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Proclamation 9844 concerning the southern border of the United States.

The 2019 declaration was a bid by the President to use up to $8 billion allocated for military construction funding for his then promised border wall.

As of Jan. 8, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says 453 miles of Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” has been constructed.

The move comes as thousands of migrants from Central America appear to be on their way to the United States in anticipation for more welcoming immigration policies under incoming President Joe Biden.

Video has surfaced on social media of the massive caravan busting through a wall of law enforcement officers at the Guatemala border.

As we highlighted on Sunday, as many as 8,000 migrants from Honduras had entered Guatemala over the weekend.

On caravan traveler speaking to The Hill said that he was heading to the U.S. because President Joe Biden is “giving us 100 days to get to the U.S,” likely referring to Biden’s pledge to place a 100-day moratorium on deportation.

Some of the travelers citied the bleak economic situation in Honduras, caused by the Coronavirus pandemic and two devastating Category 4 hurricanes that battered the country in November, as reason for heading north.

“We have nothing to feed to our children, and thousands of us were left sleeping on the streets,” mother-of-four Maria Jesus Paz, who lost her home in the hurricanes, said. “This is why we make this decision, even though we know that the journey could cost us our lives.”

The “migrant rights” group Pueblo Sin Fronteras issued a statement on behalf of the caravan which called on the Biden government to ‘honor its commitments.’

“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,” the statement read. “We will advocate that the Biden government honors its commitments.”

President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to ‘immediately’ send a legislative package to congress which will include a pathway to citizenship for some 11 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S.

Biden has also promised to provide a shorter pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of people living in the United States under the temporary protected status of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

“On Inauguration Day, President-elect Biden will sign roughly a dozen actions to combat the four crises, restore humanity to our immigration system, and make government function for the people,” reads a memo put out last week by incoming Biden chief of staff, Ron Klain. He added that the incoming president’s agenda included “the immigration bill he will send to Congress on his first day in office.“

As noted by Jack Phillips at the Epoch Times:

… on Jan. 18, an anonymous Biden transition official told news outlets that the migrants should stay put. Those migrants, according to the anonymous source, “need to understand they’re not going to be able to come into the United States immediately” and added that now “is not the time to make the journey.”

The uncertainty from Biden’s team likely stems from the pushback the sweeping immigration plan likely will face in congress, despite Democrats holding a slight majority in both chambers.

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