Frank Jack Daniel and Mica Rosenberg, Reuters, January 24, 2019

The U.S. government will return the first group of migrants seeking asylum in the United States to the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Friday, U.S. and Mexican officials said, marking the start of a major policy shift by the Trump administration.

The policy dubbed the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) and first announced on Dec. 20 will return non-Mexican migrants who cross the U.S. southern border back to wait in Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in U.S. immigration courts.

The plan is aimed at curbing the increasing number of families arriving mostly from Central America who say they fear returning to their home countries due to threats of violence. The Trump administration says many of the claims are not valid.

The program will apply to arriving migrants who ask for asylum at ports of entry or who are caught crossing illegally and say they are afraid to return home.

Children traveling on their own and some migrants from “vulnerable populations” could be excluded on a case-by-case basis, the Department of Homeland Security said in a fact sheet.

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Now, the U.S. government says migrants will be turned away with a “notice to appear” in immigration court. They will be able to enter the United States for their hearings but will have to live in Mexico in the interim. If they lose their cases, they will be deported to their home countries.

Mexico has said it will not accept anybody facing a credible threat in Mexican territory.

But immigration advocates fear Mexican territory is not safe for migrants who are regularly kidnapped by criminal gangs and smugglers, and have raised concerns that applicants will not be able to access proper legal counsel to represent them in U.S. courts.

It is unclear how Mexico plans to house what could be thousands of asylum seekers for the lengthy duration of their immigration proceedings. Some Mexican border towns are more violent than the cities the Central Americans left behind.

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