Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Memos say agents must target Spanish speakers at border
SAN DIEGO — Border agents have been told to explicitly target Spanish speakers and migrants from Latin America in carrying out a Trump administration program requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, according to memos obtained by The Associated Press that reveal some inner workings of a top government priority to address the burgeoning number of Central Americans arriving in the country.
The Trump administration launched the program in late January in what marks a shift in how the U.S. handles the cases of immigrants seeking asylum and fleeing persecution in their homeland.
The program initially applied only to those who turned themselves in at official border crossings. But a memo from a division chief of the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector said it expanded Friday to include people who cross the border illegally.
The guidance includes instruction about groups of immigrants who are not to be sent back to Mexico and instead go through the traditional asylum process in the U.S. court system. They include pregnant women, LGBT migrants and people suffering medical issues. Authorities said previously that Mexican asylum seekers are excluded, as are children traveling alone.
U.S. officials must check if the asylum seeker has any felony convictions and notify Mexico at least 12 hours before they are returned. Those who cross illegally must have come as single adults, though the administration is in talks with the Mexican government to include families.
The program is being implemented as border arrests soared in February to a 12-year-high, and more than half of those stopped arrived as families, many of them asylum seekers who generally turn themselves in instead of eluding capture. Guatemala and Honduras have replaced Mexico as the top countries.
The instructions say Mexican officials insist that no more than 20 asylum seekers are returned each day from San Diego to Tijuana, Mexico, on Monday through Saturday, underscoring challenges that the U.S. faces in trying to quickly ramp up one of its top border enforcement priorities and most significant changes to the U.S. immigration system of Donald Trump’s presidency. Authorities said Tuesday that more than 76,000 were stopped or apprehended at the Mexican border in February, more than double the same period last year.
A memo on Tuesday to top Border Patrol officials in San Diego said the agency is under “pressures to utilize this program as much as we can.”
Asylum-seeking families are typically released from U.S. custody immediately and allowed to settle with family or friends while their cases wind through immigration courts. Critics say that amounts to “catch-and-release,” which officials want to limit with the new Mexico program.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security described the program as “another tool available in the law” to respond to the record numbers of Central American migrants arriving at the border in recent months. The agency said the program is being carried out in a “thoughtful and deliberate manner.”
Two U.S. officials who were not authorized to discuss the internal guidance and spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed contents of the memos obtained by the AP.