Abigail Castillo, a border crosser from the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, missed the deadline, becoming subject to President Joe Biden's new deportation rule, halting asylum processing when arrests for illegal crossings top 2,500 in a day. The president's new measure took effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, when the threshold was met, The Associated Press reports. Two senior Homeland Security Department officials confirmed the first deportations under the new rule took place Wednesday, though they did not say how many were deported. “I heard that they were going to do it or were about to do it,” Castillo, 35, said Wednesday as she and her son were escorted to a Border Patrol van with about two dozen others from Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico.
With few exceptions, asylum remains suspended until average daily arrests fall below 1,500 for a week straight. Yet there are serious questions about whether the new measure can stop large-scale migrant entries. Mexico has agreed to take back migrants who are not Mexican, but only limited numbers and nationalities. And the Biden administration doesn’t have the money and diplomatic support it needs to deport migrants long distances, including to Ecuador and India. Migrants are worried the asylum halt will drive more people to compete for the 1,450 slots awarded daily to enter legally through U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s heavily oversubscribed online app, known as CBP One. The app has become so overwhelmed at times that users get error messages and experience other technical failures.