President Trump is extending the closure of the United States’ northern and southern borders to migration and non-essential travel, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Monday.
A month ago, Trump administration officials announced that the U.S. would be closing off its southern and northern borders for all non-essential travel to stop the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.
For an additional 30 days, the Trump administration will keep the closures in place. Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement:
In close collaboration, the US, Mexico, and Canada have each agreed to extend restrictions on non-essential travel across their shared borders for 30 additional days. As President Trump stated last week, border control, travel restrictions and other limitations remain critical to slowing the spread and allowing the phased opening of the country.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order has allowed the U.S. to suspend entry at its land borders to foreign nationals who have no proper travel documentation, cannot verify their identity, or have no medical documentation. These foreign nationals are being immediately deported.
Earlier this month, federal immigration officials revealed that the CDC order gave Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents the ability to swiftly deport nearly 400 migrant children in a couple of weeks.
Federal immigration officials, as of April 7, have deported nearly 7,000 total migrants to Mexico since March 20 when the CDC order took effect, according to sources who spoke to Reuters.
Data from Guatemalan officials have shown how critical quick deportations are to stop the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. On deportation flights, Guatemalan officials have said that about 50 to 75 percent of all migrants deported from the U.S. to Guatemala have tested positive for coronavirus.
For more than a month, leading voices in conservative circles have pleaded with the Trump administration to issue a pause on immigration — a plan that is supported by nearly 80 percent of American adults and which has historical precedent dating back to the Great Depression.
Such a pause to immigration would come after four decades of the U.S. admitting 525,000 to 1.8 million legal immigrants annually. The U.S., at current legal immigration levels, admits more legal immigrants than any other country in the world and has done so for more than two decades.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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