US accelerates returns of Central American asylum seekers to Mexico
The administration of US President Donald Trump is more than doubling the number of asylum seekers it returns to Mexico as it rapidly expands a policy to make Central American migrants wait for claims south of the US-Mexico border.
A US government official familiar with the program, who asked not to be named, said the policy is being applied at three US-Mexico border crossings for all Spanish-speaking asylum seekers, other than Mexicans.
The US official said the policy, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), would be expanded to cities in Arizona and Texas. A Mexican official confirmed new locations.
The Trump administration plans to expand the MPP policy across the US-Mexico border to act as a deterrent to frivolous asylum claims during a surge in migrant families from Central America.
An official in the US Department of Homeland Security said the White House was considering building temporary immigration courts along the border to process MPP returnees.
The MPP expansion follows Mexico’s agreement earlier this month to receive thousands more migrants under the program. As of June 19, nearly 14,000 people had been returned to Mexico under MPP, according to Mexican officials.
In its first months, the policy primarily applied to Central American migrants, but as of Monday the US government began applying it to Spanish speakers more broadly, including Cubans, said Rogelio Pinal, a municipal official in Juarez, Mexico.
Cubans, a political force in US election swing state Florida, have a history of being welcomed in the United States.
Ruben Garcia, who runs El Paso’s largest migrant shelter, said there had been a sharp fall in the number of migrants released into the United States by US authorities.
Trump has made curbing illegal immigration to the US a priority issue and has blamed Mexico for the problem.
Migrant advocates have raised concerns that asylum seekers have little access to legal counsel and are vulnerable in Mexican border cities, which have some of the highest homicide rates in the world.
The Trump administration is also facing growing complaints from migrants about severe overcrowding, too little food and other hardships at detention facilities on the US-Mexico border, according to a rights group.
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