The Trump administration is set to make a big change at parts of the southern border on how they deal with migrants seeking asylum in the US.
The change, according to the report, would mean that migrants seeking asylum would wait in Mexico instead of being held in detention centers in the US:
BUZZFEED – A plan to keep Central American immigrants in Mexico while they wait for their asylum cases to be processed in the US could soon be expanded to new points along the southwest border, Trump administration officials said Friday.
The planned expansion of the policy — called Migration Protection Protocols — represents the administration’s latest attempt to institute sweeping changes to dissuade asylum-seekers from crossing the border and entering the country. In general, asylum-seekers arrive in the US and say they are experiencing persecution or are being targeted for harm in their home countries because of who they are or circumstances out of their control.
The policy went into place on Jan. 28 and initially was focused on single adults at the port of entry in Tijuana. Later, it was extended to families.
The expansion is set to come in the “coming weeks,” according to a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke to reporters Friday.
“We want to take this in a methodical approach,” one DHS official said, saying that the expansion had taken “longer than anticipated.” The policy, the officials said, was just one way to stem the “illegal flow of migrants” that are crossing the border.
The expansion, the officials said, would include individuals who cross the border illegally as well as those who come to ports of entry. While the officials did not say where the expansion would take place, they did mention that the El Paso, Texas, area was one spot they were interested in.
This is, of course, with cooperation from the Mexican government:
The Mexican government, according to the agency, will allow those individuals to stay in the country until their court dates in the US. On the day of their hearing, migrants will be taken to US immigration courts for their cases to be heard. Unaccompanied children will be excluded from the policy, and people from “vulnerable populations” may be excluded on a case-by-case basis.
But the ACLU is already suing to stop the new policy from going into effect:
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco challenging the policy on Feb. 14 on behalf of 11 individuals seeking asylum who were taken back to Mexico.
In its lawsuit, the ACLU claims that the statute cannot be used against asylum-seekers, and that it violates the Immigration and Nationality Act protections for establishing a right to apply for asylum and blocking the removal of individuals to a country where they would face persecution.
Mexico seems to have no issue with migrants entering Mexico to head for the border. So why not just keep them in Mexico, like what we saw in Tijuana, especially when they come in these large caravans. We already don’t have enough resources to deal with these migrants and it’s better for them if they are free to do what they want instead of being held in these detention centers.
I think the policy makes sense, especially since Mexico is allowing it. After all, the US isn’t saying they can’t apply for asylum, but only that they can’t come into the US until their court date is ready.
I like it.