Border arrests fall more than 40% after Biden's halt to asylum processing, Homeland Security says

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) — Arrests for illegal border crossings have dropped more than 40% during the three weeks that asylum processing has been suspended, the Homeland Security Department said Wednesday.

The announcement comes just one day before President Joe Biden is set to debate former President and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in what is expected to be a crucial moment in the election campaign.

Biden is considered especially vulnerable with voters when it comes to immigration. Trump has hammered him repeatedly on border security by painting a picture of the border as out of control and migrants as a threat to the nation's security and economy.

Biden has both sought to crack down on new arrivals at the border and to offer new immigration pathways.

The restrictions he announced at the beginning of June cut off asylum access when arrivals at the border reached a certain number, infuriating immigration advocates who say the policy differs little from what Trump attempted. Then a few weeks later Biden announced a new program aimed at undocumented spouses of American citizens who had been in the country for a decade or more that could ultimately provide them a pathway to citizenship.

The figures announced Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security show that the Border Patrol's average daily arrests over a seven-day period have fallen below 2,400, down more than 40% from before Biden's proclamation took effect June 5. That's still above the 1,500 mark needed to resume asylum processing, but Homeland Security says it marks the lowest number since Jan. 17, 2021, just before Biden took office.0

Last week, Customs and Border Protection said in its monthly release of statistics that border arrests had fallen 25% since Biden's order took effect, indicating they have decreased much more since then.

The monthly data releases are a closely watched metric of border security and how many people are coming to the southern border of the U.S. The numbers reached a record high last December before falling roughly in half in January and staying in that range throughout the spring. A large part of that decrease was believed to be due to Mexican enforcement on its side of the border.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas visited the Tucson, Arizona, sector Wednesday. That sector has been the busiest corridor for illegal crossings during much of the last year. U.S. authorities say the seven-day daily average of arrests in the sector was just under 600 on Tuesday, down from just under 1,200 on June 2.

Mayorkas declared the new rule limiting asylum a success during his visit.

“These actions are changing the calculus for those considering crossing the border," the secretary told reporters.

Under the asylum suspension, which takes effect when daily arrests are above 2,500, anyone who expresses fear or an intention to seek asylum is screened by a U.S. asylum officer but at a higher standard than currently used. If they pass the screening, they can pursue more limited forms of humanitarian protection than asylum, including the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

Immigration advocates have sued to stop the restrictions.

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Santana reported from Washington.

A driver readies a bus to transport migrants from a border patrol holding facility in Tucson, Ariz., Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, Pool)

The border fence is seen over rolling hills from the U.S. side of the US-Mexico border in Nogales, Ariz. on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, Pool)

A vehicle drives along the U.S. side of the US-Mexico border wall in Nogales, Ariz. on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, Pool)

Border patrol agent Pete Bidegain looks from a hilltop on the U.S. side of the US-Mexico border in Nogales, Ariz. on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, Pool)

President Joe Biden speaks during an event marking the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals program, in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

FILE - President Joe Biden answers a question as he watches a skydiving demonstration, at the G7 summit, June 13, 2024, in Borgo Egnazia, Italy. A clip of the president watching the demonstration was cropped to make it appear as though he wandered off for no reason. Republicans have shared a spate of misleading, out-of-context videos to fuel a narrative that President Joe Biden is mentally and physically unfit for office. These widespread misleading videos show how the reach of social media and real concerns about Biden's age have made the tactic especially powerful in 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden talks with the U.S. Border Patrol and local officials, as he looks over the southern border, Feb. 29, 2024, in Brownsville, Texas, along the Rio Grande. Over the course of two weeks, President Joe Biden has imposed significant restrictions on immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. and then offered potential citizenship to hundreds of thousands of people without legal status already living in the country. The two actions in tandem gives the president a chance to address one of the biggest vulnerabilities for his reelection campaign. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Homeland Security says border arrests fall more than 40% since Biden's halt to asylum processing

Homeland Security says border arrests fall more than 40% since Biden's halt to asylum processing

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room at the White House in Washington, June 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

NANTERRE, France (AP) — One year after a French teenager with North African origins was killed by police — a shooting that sparked shock and days of rioting across France — his mother led a silent march Saturday to pay homage to her son.

It comes at a politically fraught time. Hate speech is blighting the campaign for snap parliamentary elections taking place this weekend, and an anti-immigration party that wants to boost police powers to use their weapons, and has historic ties to racism and antisemitism is leading in the polls.

Several hundred family members, friends and supporters gathered in the Paris suburb of Nanterre to remember 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, who was shot dead at point-blank range by a police officer at a traffic check on June 27, 2023.

Within hours of his death, Merzouk, a delivery driver from a working-class neighborhood, became a symbol. For many across France, he was the embodiment of young French Black and North African men who, studies show, face police checks and discrimination more frequently than their white counterparts.

At Sunday's march, his mother Mounia spoke to the crowd then broke off in tears. Friends wore white t-shirts with Merzouk’s photo, and fellow residents of his housing project held a banner reading “Justice for Nahel.” The march ended at the spot where he was killed, and an imam sang and read a prayer.

There was no visible police presence, though organizers of the march recruited guards to ensure security for the event. Merzouk's mother asked politicians to stay away, to avoid politicking or tensions the day before France’s parliamentary elections.

On Sunday, French voters will cast ballots in the first round of snap elections for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, that could lead to the country’s first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation.

French opinion polls suggest the National Rally party could dominate the next parliament after the July 7 second round and get the prime minister’s job. In that scenario, Centrist President Emmanuel Macron would retain the presidency until 2027 but in a sharply weakened role.

“This march, happening now, it is a powerful symbol," said Assa Traore, who has been fighting for justice since her brother Adama died in the custody of French police in 2016.

“It means that history can’t write itself without us. We, from the working-class neighborhoods, are the firsthand victims of these elections. We realized, from an early stage, that the National Rally and far-right parties were a danger for our country and will weaken it," said the 39-year-old with Malian roots who will march alongside Merzouk’s family.

Merzouk's death, which was captured on video, stirred up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects and disadvantaged suburbs, many of whom are French-born youth with immigrant family backgrounds. Fueled by TikTok, riots spread with unprecedented speed before a mass police crackdown. The unrest caused, according to French authorities, more than $1 billion in damage.

The officer who fired the shot cited self-defense, and an extreme-right figure started a crowdfunding campaign for the policeman that drew $1.6 million before being shut down.

Citing security concerns, notably in housing projects and other impoverished areas in French suburbs or “banlieues,” the far-right National Rally wants to give a specific new legal status to police. If police officers use their arms during an intervention, they would be presumed to have acted in self-defense. Currently police officers have the same legal status as all French citizens and have to prove they acted in self-defense.

The left-wing coalition New Popular Front, meanwhile, wants to ban the use of some police weapons and dismantle a notoriously tough police unit.

“People fear the victory of the National Rally. But, we, people from working-class neighborhoods, are afraid every day that our sons, brothers, or husbands will be killed. Racism and racial profiling are our daily life," Traore said.

Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

Follow AP's coverage of elections worldwide at https://apnews.com/hub/global-elections/

FILE - Flowers lay at the tomb of Nahel Merzouk on July 5, 2023 in a cemetery in Nanterre, a Paris suburb. One year after the French teenager with North African origins was killed by police, a shooting that sparked shock and days of rioting across France, his mother is leading a silent march Saturday, June 29, 2024 to pay homage to her son. (AP Photo/Cara Anna, File)