Migrants to be sent back to dangerous areas
HOUSTON — The U.S. government expanded on Friday its requirement that asylum seekers wait outside the country to a part of the Texas Rio Grande Valley across from one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities.
The Department of Homeland Security said that it would implement its Migrant Protection Protocols in Brownsville, Texas, across the border from Matamoros, Mexico. DHS says it anticipates the first asylum seekers will be sent back to Mexico immediately.
Under the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy, asylum seekers are briefly processed and given a date to return for an immigration court hearing before being sent back across the southern border. Since January, the policy has been implemented at several border cities, including San Diego and El Paso, Texas. At least 18,000 migrants have been sent back to Mexico under the policy, according to Mexico’s National Migration Institute.
The U.S. is trying to curtail the large flow of Central American migrants passing through Mexico to seek asylum under American law. The busiest corridor for unauthorized border crossings is the Rio Grande Valley, at Texas’ southernmost point. Other cities in the region were not immediately included in the expansion.
Previously, migrants weren’t sent back to Matamoros, which is at the eastern edge of the U.s.-mexico border in Tamaulipas state and where organized crime gangs are dominant and the U.S. government warns citizens not to visit due to violence and kidnappings.
The city is also near where a Salvadoran father and his 23-month-old daughter were found drowned in the Rio Grande, in photos that were shared around the world.
The policy announcement came as groups of lawmakers visited the region Friday to examine detention facilities operated by the U.S. Border Patrol, including the processing center in Mcallen, Texas, where hundreds of adults and children are detained in fenced-in pens.
U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragán, a California Democrat, tweeted that while visiting the processing center, she encountered a 13-year-old girl who was a U.S. citizen and had her passport with her. The girl was held with her mother despite the facility being designed for immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission, not citizens, Barragán said.
DHS said it had coordinated with the Mexican government to expand its “Remain” policy. The Mexican government did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But the Trump administration has pressured Mexico to crack down on migrants, threatening earlier this year to impose crippling tariffs until both sides agreed on new measures targeting migration.
Many people have slept for the past several months in a makeshift camp near one of the international bridges, including families with young children. Thousands more stay in hotels, shelters, or boarding houses. Only a few migrants daily have been allowed to seek asylum under another Trump administration policy limiting asylum processing known as “metering.”
A list run by Mexican officials has more than 1,000 people on it, said Elisa Filippone, a U.s.based volunteer who visits Matamoros several times a week to deliver food and donated clothes. But many others not on the list wait in shelters. There are frequent rumors that migrants are shaken down for bribes to join the list, Filippone said.
She described a desperate situation that could be made worse if people are forced to wait longer in Mexico for their asylum claims to be processed.
“I’m afraid that Matamoros is about to catch on fire,” she said.