MEXICO – The US government will return the first group of migrants seeking asylum in the United States to the Mexican border city of Tijuana this week, US 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 US southern border back to wait in Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in US 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.
Illegal crossings at the southern border have dropped dramatically since highs reached in previous decades, but in recent years more families and unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are migrating to the United States and asylum applications have ballooned.
Last year, about 93,000 people sought asylum at the southern border, up 67 percent from 2017, according to US government data. (Reuters)
