In the aftermath of Sunday’s border incident, the outgoing Mexican Interior Minister Alfonso Navarrete insisted that his government would move to strengthen security measures in Tijuana and Mexicali. Meanwhile, his designated successor, Olga Sánchez Cordero, who will serve under López Obrador, is in the midst of negotiating a “ Remain in Mexico ” plan with the U.S. government, which has the potential to greatly reduce the pressure on a U.S. asylum system that is in crisis . Though it remains to be seen if a deal will be done, it would represent a major breakthrough in U.S.-Mexican relations. The catch is that such a deal would have to be politically sustainable.

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For both countries, the pressing issue is that a broken U.S. asylum system is fueling an accelerating cascade of Central American migration, which in turn is sparking anger and resentment in Mexico. A large majority of asylum seekers bound for the U.S. can demonstrate a “credible fear” of persecution if they were to return to their native countries, a permissive standard designed to screen out only the least plausible claims. This then gives them the right to go through a longer, more demanding evaluation of their asylum claims, after which only a small fraction are ultimately granted asylum by an immigration judge.

Given that most asylum claims are rejected, why do so many migrants file claims that are unlikely to pass muster? One answer is that merely filing a claim, even one that isn’t necessarily meritorious, has until now offered a tentative foothold in American life. The surge in asylum claims has led to a severe backlog. The sheer volume of asylum seekers is so great that only so many can be detained, and so they are typically released on bond. Parents with children can be held for no more than 20 days, which in turn has contributed to a sharp increase in the number of families with children at the border. Those whose case decisions are delayed are granted work authorization in the interim, a period that can last several years.

The result is that Central American communities in the U.S. have been growing considerably, and migrants who’ve established themselves beckon friends and relatives who have yet to join them. Though it is undoubtedly true that high levels of violent crime have been pushing people out of the Northern Triangle, even as homicide rates have declined in recent years, the pull of family ties and economic opportunity is at least as powerful a force. Drawing on World Bank data, the Pew Research Center found that remittances from migrant workers represented 17 percent of GDP in El Salvador, 11 percent in Guatemala, and 18 percent in Honduras as of 2016, numbers that have likely increased in the intervening years.

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