Trump’s plan to send migrants to Mexico to wait out asylum requests was aimed at coping with Central Americans coming to the US

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The United States will return the first group of migrants seeking US asylum to the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Friday, a Mexican government spokesman said on Thursday.

The spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not specify the nationalities of those to be returned to Mexico.

The Trump administration announced on 20 December it would send non-Mexican migrants who cross the US southern border back to Mexico to wait while their asylum requests are processed. The policy was aimed at helping cope with rising numbers of Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States.

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Mexico and the US have held two meetings to work out details of the plan. Mexico has said it will not accept anybody facing a credible threat in Mexican territory.

The US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond for a comment on when the program would begin, although a department official said the policy would not apply to certain vulnerable populations and unaccompanied minors.

Serious doubts exist over whether Mexico can keep Central American asylum seekers who are fleeing poverty and crime safe, especially in border towns that are often more violent than the cities they left.

It is unclear how Mexico plans to house what could be thousands of asylum seekers for the months – or years – it takes for US immigration cases to be heard. A backlog of more than 800,000 cases is pending in immigration courts.

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The program, dubbed Migrant Protection Protocols by homeland security, is one of a series of measures taken by the Trump administration aimed at making it harder for Central Americans to enter the United States under asylum laws.

Trump argues that the asylum system is abused, calling a process by which many migrants are freed in the United States to await immigration trial “catch and release”.

Trump is demanding $5.7bn in funding for a wall along the Mexican border, triggering a partial government shutdown that stretched to its 34th day on Thursday and has left 800,000 federal workers without pay.

Illegal crossings at the southern border have dropped dramatically since highs in previous decades, but in recent years more Central American families and unaccompanied children have been migrating to the United States and applications for asylum have ballooned.

Last year, about 93,000 people sought asylum at the southern border, up 67% from 2017, according to government data.