US officials are confident El Salvador will take more than 2,000 immigrants who cross the southern border without authorization, a source said.

Fernando Llano / AP A Customs and Border Protection officer checks the documents of immigrants who are on their way to apply for asylum in the United States in 2019.

Top Trump administration officials held a secret meeting in Miami with El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele on Friday to finalize a plan to send asylum-seekers, including those from Mexico, to the Central American country, according to a source familiar with the meeting. US officials were confident after the meeting, which included acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, that El Salvador would take more than 2,000 immigrants who cross the southern border without authorization this year and that the returns could take shape by the end of March, said the source, who could not speak publicly on the matter. In December, Bukele told CBS’s 60 Minutes that El Salvador was not ready for asylum-seekers from other countries.

A DHS spokesperson said that there was no “secret meeting,” adding that “senior officials from these governments meet constantly away from the bright lights of a press conference.” The spokesperson noted that it should be no surprise that the Trump administration “is doing exactly what we said we would do.” “We are ending abuse of our asylum system and deterring illegal immigration, while also giving legitimate asylum-seekers opportunities to seek protection in their home region,” the spokesperson said.

Fernando Llano / AP Immigrants who are applying for asylum in the US walk to their appointments with authorities in Laredo, Texas, in 2019.

The meeting with Bukele came amid the Trump administration’s broader efforts to restrict asylum at the southern border and as the Supreme Court deliberates over a policy that forces asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico for the duration of their US immigration cases. The “Remain in Mexico” policy, a pillar of the Trump administration’s approach to deterring asylum-seekers, has led to upward of 60,000 people being returned to Mexico. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals will block the Remain in Mexico policy — formally called the Migration Protection Protocols — on Thursday, unless the Supreme Court steps in. DHS officials requested last week the high court stay the 9th Circuit’s order to block the policy in California and Arizona. In preparation, DHS officials last week also scheduled meetings with leading figures from Honduras and Guatemala to discuss plans to send more asylum-seekers to the countries in the event that the Remain in Mexico policy is blocked, the source said. The agreements with all three countries to accept asylum-seekers were signed last year after negotiations led by then-DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan. The Guatemala agreement was implemented late last year, but plans to send asylum-seekers to El Salvador and Honduras have yet to take shape. Citizens of the three countries represented a bulk of those arrested at the border last year. DHS officials have said that more than 71% of those apprehended at the southern border in the 2019 fiscal year were from Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador. Since November, more than 800 asylum-seekers from El Salvador and Honduras, including families, have been sent to Guatemala to seek asylum there, according to figures from the Guatemalan government. Last week, a union representing US asylum officers implored a federal judge to block the plan. Advocates and asylum officers previously told BuzzFeed News that the unprecedented plan lacks legality and organization and will lead to immigrants being placed in dangerous circumstances.

Cedar Attanasio / AP A girl from southern Mexico plays with a neck pillow in the street outside her family's tent in Juárez, Mexico, near the border with El Paso, Texas.