Trump administration steps up effort to return asylum seekers to Mexico

[webfact]

Trump administration steps up effort to return asylum seekers to Mexico

By Yeganeh Torbati and Jose Gallego Espina

 

Cars queue up in multiple lines as they wait to be inspected by U.S. border patrol officers to enter from Mexico into the U.S., at the San Ysidro point of entry, in Tijuana, Mexico April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes

 

WASHINGTON/SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The Trump administration is intensifying measures to curb the flow of Central American asylum seekers crossing into the United States from Mexico, officials said on Monday, including sending more people back to Mexico to wait for their asylum claims to be heard by U.S. courts.

 

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency will speed up the reassignment of 750 officers to parts of the border dealing with the largest numbers of immigrants, a shift the administration first announced last week.

 

Nielsen was cutting short a visit to Europe and flying back to Washington from London to personally oversee enforcement actions, and would visit the border later in the week, a Homeland Security official said late on Monday. She had been due to also travel to Sweden and take part in a meeting of G7 security officials in Paris.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to close the border this week if Mexico does not stop a surge of people, often travelling as families from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Closing the border would potentially disrupt millions of legal border crossings and billions of dollars in trade. His aides doubled down on the threat on Sunday but offered no specific details or timeline. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2CJe9fh)

 

One policy put in place earlier this year to return asylum seekers to Mexico, called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), will be "immediately" expanded by "hundreds of additional migrants per day above current rates," Nielsen said in a statement on Monday.

 

As of March 26, approximately 370 migrants had been returned to Mexico since the programme began in late January, a Mexican official said last week.

People who have been returned to Mexico to wait are struggling to find attorneys and receive notice of their proceedings in U.S. courts, rights advocates said.

 

Trump administration officials say the MPP is a way to address the failings of the current system, which they claim encourages illegal immigration.

 

Families that claim asylum are often released into the United States because of limits on how long children can be held in detention, allowing them to stay for years while their cases move through a backlogged immigration court system even though many claims are ultimately denied.

 

SHELTERS AT CAPACITY

The administration is hoping policies of deterrence will reduce the number of people who turn themselves in to U.S. border agents, overwhelming the capacity of processing centres along the southern border.

 

CBP estimated last month that some 100,000 migrants would be apprehended or encountered at the border in March, the highest level in a decade, forcing agents to temporarily house migrants for processing in an outdoor enclosure under an international bridge in El Paso, Texas. That overflow site was shut down on Sunday after being used for a month.

 

The total number of immigrants being released by U.S. immigration authorities in El Paso is averaging 500-600 per day, said Ruben Garcia, executive director of Annunciation House, which coordinates migrant releases with U.S. immigration authorities. Annunciation House is preparing for that total to rise to up to 1,100 during the current surge, Garcia said.

 

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday that Mexico will help to regulate the flow of Central Americans passing through its territory to the United States. He said the root causes of the phenomenon must be tackled.

 

In a move Democrats and Republicans in Congress have said would be counterproductive, the U.S. State Department cut aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador after Trump accused them, without providing evidence, of having "set up" migrant caravans and sending them north.

 

The Mexican government did not respond to requests for comment about the expansion of MPP, and it was not clear to what extent Mexico was forewarned. In the past, Mexico has said it was accepting returned asylum seekers for humanitarian reasons although it opposes the policy.

 

Shelters in major Mexican border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez are already at capacity because of the increase in asylum seekers in recent months and the U.S. policy of allowing only a few dozen people per day to ask for asylum at ports of entry.

 

COURT HEARINGS

Last week, San Diego immigration judge Scott Simpson heard from the first Central American families that were returned to Mexico under the MPP policy.

 

Of four families in court on Wednesday, just one had an attorney.

 

Yanira Esmeralda Chavez, a Salvadoran fruit seller, accompanied by her three boys did not have a lawyer as she made her case to Simpson. The family had been staying at a shelter in Tijuana, and asked to remain in the United States because they feared being sent back to Mexico.

 

"I called the numbers on the attorney list that they provided me, but they said they cannot take my case because I am in Tijuana," Chavez said in the hearing. "It would be better if I stay in the U.S., where I have family members."

 

Simpson gave Chavez two more months to obtain an attorney, and said that her family in the United States could perhaps help her find a lawyer.

 

Throughout the day, Simpson expressed his concerns about the policy, saying he was "sceptical" about migrants getting their notices to appear in court, given the court does not have proper addresses for those returned to Mexico.

 

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Jose Gallego Espina; additional reporting by Dave Graham, Sharay Angulo and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City, Andrew Hay in New Mexico and Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso; editing by Mica Rosenberg, Grant McCool and Lisa Shumaker)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-04-02

[TopDeadSenter]

So this is a decent 4 pronged strategy. 1)build the wall. 2)stop aid to central American countries that facilitate the migrant caravans.3)threaten to close the Mexican border to punish the Mexican government that facilitates illegal immigrant caravans. 4) start deporting illegal immigrants that do not meet the criteria for seeking asylum.

 All looks good on paper, I appreciate Trump's efforts with this in the face of such hysterical opposition.

[attrayant]

25 minutes ago, TopDeadSenter said:

So this is a decent 4 pronged strategy. 1)build the wall.

 

What about air and sea arrivals?  That's how most undocumented immigrants get into the country anyway.

 

Quote

2)stop aid to central American countries that facilitate the migrant caravans.

 

Thereby causing more hardship in those countries, resulting in more migrants coming to the US, which has done nothing to stop illegal immigration by air or sea (see prong #1), and therefore they'll still be able to get in fairly easily.

 

Quote

3)threaten to close the Mexican border to punish the Mexican government that facilitates illegal immigrant caravans.

 

The action is simply to threaten?  That won't be effective because Trump's threats are toothless.

 

Quote

4) start deporting illegal immigrants that do not meet the criteria for seeking asylum.

 

Already doing this.  Did you think that asylum seekers were simply let in free & clear after being found unqualified for asylum claims?

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by attrayant

[EVENKEEL]

25 minutes ago, attrayant said:

Quote

4) start deporting illegal immigrants that do not meet the criteria for seeking asylum.

 

Already doing this.  Did you think that asylum seekers were simply let in free & clear after being found unqualified for asylum claims?

False...….Not enough holding space, so as they enter they are released into the US to await court hearing. 

[attrayant]

Just now, EVENKEEL said:

False...….Not enough holding space, so as they enter they are released into the US to await court hearing. 

 

The post I quoted says "illegal immigrants that do not meet the criteria for seeking asylum", meaning those who have already been screened and found not to qualify.  Those who are on holding pens or who have been released are still being processed to determine their eligibility.

[Thainesss]

36 minutes ago, attrayant said:

What about air and sea arrivals?  That's how most undocumented immigrants get into the country anyway.

 

Its a completely separate issue, and they aren't "Undocumented" when they arrive. What you're doing is called deflection. 

 

37 minutes ago, attrayant said:

Thereby causing more hardship in those countries, resulting in more migrants coming to the US, which has done nothing to stop illegal immigration by air or sea (see prong #1), and therefore they'll still be able to get in fairly easily.

 

More air travel deflection. 

 

Besides, it sounds to me like you're saying that we have to give other countries south of the border more money and take care of them too on top of ourselves so that they dont try & migrate to us, which is absurd because we are a sovereign nation and have no duty or responsibility to anyone other than ourselves, and have every right in the world to monitor and allow people coming into our country as we see fit. 

 

Its clear as day that the left has no desire to legitimately address this growing humanitarian problem, and are raging hypocrites for hyperventilating over a few billion for border barriers, yet have no problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars doing nothing. 

 

All the while knowingly ignoring the issue that almost all of these illegal aliens dont qualify for asylum or refugee status. 

[Thainesss]

13 minutes ago, attrayant said:

 

The post I quoted says "illegal immigrants that do not meet the criteria for seeking asylum", meaning those who have already been screened and found not to qualify.  Those who are on holding pens or who have been released are still being processed to determine their eligibility.

 

Just curious, but you are of the opinion that any person, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of people, and hundreds of billions of dollars it would cost, should be provided housing, food, and medical treatment on arrival, and a place to stay until they get a hearing, all on the taxpayers dime? 

[crees]

Best view in my life was California in my rear view mirror

[thaibeachlovers]

Hawaii loves immigrants ( or at least that federal judge does ), so my suggestion is to send them to Hawaii to wait while their claims are being processed.

Also send a lot to New York and California.

 

Just a guess, but they might suddenly find that  immigrants being parked en mass in their cities isn't such a great idea that it was when they were being held in other states.

Edited April 2, 2019 by thaibeachlovers

[attrayant]

40 minutes ago, Thainesss said:

Its a completely separate issue, and they aren't "Undocumented" when they arrive.

 

I am not trying to change the subject.  They come in legally and then overstay their welcome.  Result is the same: an undocumented immigrant.  Are you suggesting we don't need to worry about these undocumented immigrants because they came in legally?

[Thainesss]

1 minute ago, attrayant said:

 

I am not trying to change the subject.  They come in legally and then overstay their welcome.  Result is the same: an undocumented immigrant.  Are you suggesting we don't need to worry about these undocumented immigrants because they came in legally?

 

Absolutely not, but like i said originally it's a completely separate issue, with a completely different set of problems, and completely different solution. 

 

And you are trying to deflect from the issue of the southern border. 

[EVENKEEL]

14 minutes ago, attrayant said:

 

I am not trying to change the subject.  They come in legally and then overstay their welcome.  Result is the same: an undocumented immigrant.  Are you suggesting we don't need to worry about these undocumented immigrants because they came in legally?

You really don't have a foot to stand on. The immediate Crisis is at the southern border, not the airports.

[attrayant]

39 minutes ago, Thainesss said:

 

Just curious, but you are of the opinion that any person, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of people, and hundreds of billions of dollars it would cost, should be provided housing, food, and medical treatment on arrival, and a place to stay until they get a hearing, all on the taxpayers dime? 

 

I think we should follow our own laws, if that's okay with you.  Whatever our laws say we should do when an immigrant shows up at the border and requests asylum, well that's what we should do.

 

If somebody shows up at the border bleeding and obviously needs medical attention, then yes they should at least get first aid.  That's the humanitarian thing to do.  You make it sound like every immigrant gets airlifted to Mount Cedars Sinai and put in a private room with Netflix on demand.  We send vaccines to impoverished countries, so what's the difference between that and vaccinating them when they arrive?  That's for our protection as well as theirs.

 

We're already at your "hundreds of thousands" level - which is low compared to pre-Obama years.  It would certainly help matters if we could avoid cutting aid to impoverished countries and have policies in place that aim to prevent the numbers from climbing back into the millions again, as they were in the Bush & Clinton years.

[attrayant]

13 minutes ago, Thainesss said:

And you are trying to deflect from the issue of the southern border. 

 

 

The "issue" is not just the southern border.  But if you can make it seem like that's the issue, then it certainly seems to make a border wall look more justified, so I understand where your tunnel vision is coming from.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, attrayant said:

 

I think we should follow our own laws, if that's okay with you.  Whatever our laws say we should do when an immigrant shows up at the border and requests asylum, well that's what we should do.

 

If somebody shows up at the border bleeding and obviously needs medical attention, then yes they should at least get first aid.  That's the humanitarian thing to do.  You make it sound like every immigrant gets airlifted to Mount Cedars Sinai and put in a private room with Netflix on demand.  We send vaccines to impoverished countries, so what's the difference between that and vaccinating them when they arrive?  That's for our protection as well as theirs.

 

We're already at your "hundreds of thousands" level - which is low compared to pre-Obama years.  It would certainly help matters if we could avoid cutting aid to impoverished countries and have policies in place that aim to prevent the numbers from climbing back into the millions again, as they were in the Bush & Clinton years.

Sorry, but all you are doing is proving Trump's point that the US has very bad immigration policies. If millions were arriving in the Bush and Clinton years that is their shame. Trump is just trying to right the insanity that is the US immigration fiasco, IMO.

Normally I'd never support a billionaire, but I happen to agree with his policies- the wall, restricted immigration etc.

Not all his policies though. Some are just wrong, but that's a discussion for a different thread.

[attrayant]

4 minutes ago, EVENKEEL said:

The immediate Crisis is at the southern border, not the airports.

 

Compared to recent history, there is no "immediate crisis" at the southern border.  There has been a surge of asylum claims and families crossing the southern border this past year, but it is no worse than other increases in recent years, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

 

 

A wall would not end immigrant's rights to claim asylum.  

[Thainesss]

6 minutes ago, attrayant said:

 

I think we should follow our own laws, if that's okay with you.  Whatever our laws say we should do when an immigrant shows up at the border and requests asylum, well that's what we should do.

 

If somebody shows up at the border bleeding and obviously needs medical attention, then yes they should at least get first aid.  That's the humanitarian thing to do.  You make it sound like every immigrant gets airlifted to Mount Cedars Sinai and put in a private room with Netflix on demand.  We send vaccines to impoverished countries, so what's the difference between that and vaccinating them when they arrive?  That's for our protection as well as theirs.

 

We're already at your "hundreds of thousands" level - which is low compared to pre-Obama years.  It would certainly help matters if we could avoid cutting aid to impoverished countries and have policies in place that aim to prevent the numbers from climbing back into the millions again, as they were in the Bush & Clinton years.

 

Our own laws say they have to go to a port of entry and apply, not intentionally jump the border then scream asylum when they are caught. It is legal to apply for asylum from within the usa regardless of immigration status, so the loophole should be closed, because it's being horribly exploited. 

 

I really don't know what else to tell you and what you propose is an absurd cost to the taxpayer. 

 

And we can change the laws of the left wanted to, but they don't, because they want to change the electorate demographics. 

[EVENKEEL]

4 minutes ago, attrayant said:

 

Compared to recent history, there is no "immediate crisis" at the southern border.  There has been a surge of asylum claims and families crossing the southern border this past year, but it is no worse than other increases in recent years, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

 

 

A wall would not end immigrant's rights to claim asylum.  

And finally we have a president willing to tackle this problem. Hate Trump all you want, the problem is real.

The barrier is another issue.

[Thainesss]

7 minutes ago, attrayant said:

A wall would not end immigrant's rights to claim asylum.  

So you're of the position that an illegal alien has the right to illegally cross a nations border to apply for asylum? 

[thaibeachlovers]

44 minutes ago, attrayant said:

 

Compared to recent history, there is no "immediate crisis" at the southern border.  There has been a surge of asylum claims and families crossing the southern border this past year, but it is no worse than other increases in recent years, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

 

 

A wall would not end immigrant's rights to claim asylum.  

Far as I can see, they only claim asylum if they get caught. Build the wall, and they have to go to the proper place to claim asylum. Is that unreasonable?

BTW, posters are always saying that illegals can climb over it, but from the tv clips I've seen the razor wire being put on the top of the  new wall will make that much, much harder.

I can't understand why every inch of the old wall hasn't got razor wire on it from day one.

If anyone hasn't come in contact with it, it's really bad stuff to get tangled in.

[elmrfudd]

6 hours ago, attrayant said:

 

I am not trying to change the subject.  They come in legally and then overstay their welcome.  Result is the same: an undocumented immigrant.  Are you suggesting we don't need to worry about these undocumented immigrants because they came in legally?

They aren't undocumented, they arrive with visas and a passport. Get it? 

[elmrfudd]

[Redline]

Which Mexican country?  They all speak Mexican right?

Edited April 2, 2019 by Redline

[Redline]

5 hours ago, elmrfudd said:

Is that there the deep state ????

[usviphotography]

14 hours ago, attrayant said:

 

Compared to recent history, there is no "immediate crisis" at the southern border.  There has been a surge of asylum claims and families crossing the southern border this past year, but it is no worse than other increases in recent years, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

 

 

A wall would not end immigrant's rights to claim asylum.  

What you are missing in this chart is that in 2012 the Asylum scam hadn't been popularized. Most of the apprehensions in the past were people who were captured and sent back. Most of the "apprehensions" now are being let through. It is a crisis of epic proportions. With respect to Visa overstays from people that fly in, I agree, we need an Exit Visa system in America. Congress actually voted for that prior to 9/11 and it still hasn't been implemented. As soon as the immediate crisis at the border is dealt with, that is an excellent issue to focus our attention on next. I'm sure the Democrats will be 100% helpful and not obstruct at all, lol.