Mexico buses home 70 asylum seekers returning from U.S.

MEXICO CITY — Dozens of Central Americans who had been returned to the border city of Ciudad Juárez to await the outcome of their U.S. asylum claims were being bused back to their countries Tuesday by Mexican authorities, a first for the program commonly known as “remain in Mexico.”

An official with Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said the bus left Ciudad Juárez at 9 a.m. and all 70 aboard wanted to be repatriated to their native El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras. It’s at least a day and a half journey overland from the city to Mexico’s southern border.

Transportation was co-ordinated by the International Organization for Migration and Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, according to the official.

The official added that similar busings were “coming soon” in Tijuana and Mexicali, two other cities that have been taking in returnees from the United States under the program that began in January.

There have been nearly 17,000 returns by asylum seekers to Mexico from the United States under the program, for waits that stand to take many months or even longer as claims slog through backlogged U.S. immigration courts.

Under a recent agreement with Washington to head off threatened U.S. tariffs on Mexican goods, Mexico agreed to an expansion of the program to other border points beyond those three cities.

Cities like Juarez and Tijuana can be dangerous places with high homicide rates. Farther east, in the Gulf Coast state of Tamaulipas, cartels have historically been known to target migrants for extortion and murder.