US returns migrant pair to Mexico after Trump policy is revived

THE United States has sent the first two migrants back to Mexico under a reinstated hard-line policy that was initially introduced by Donald Trump when he was president.

Under the Trump era “Remain in Mexico” programme, asylum seekers had to wait on the Mexican side of the border ahead of immigration hearings in US courts. Joe Biden suspended the policy on his first day in office but a legal challenge by the states of Texas and Missouri forced him to put it back into effect this week.

The UN International Organisation for Migration said that the first two migrants were sent back over a bridge from El Paso in Texas to the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez on the Rio Grande.

It condemned the move as “inhumane and contrary to international law”. One of the two men, who identified himself as Enrique Manzanares from Nicaragua, said he was just thankful to still be alive.

“In the end, nothing was lost,” he said. “Some of us make it, others don’t.”

The two migrants were greeted by Mexican and UN official,s who gave them coronavirus tests and took them to a shelter.

US homeland security officials said that returns to Mexico would be conducted at seven points along the border including San Diego, California, and Brownsville, Texas. Mr Trump introduced the policy at the beginning of 2019, forcing asylum seekers to wait on the Mexico side of the border for months.

Since Mr Biden ended the policy, there has been a sharp rise in border crossings and the number of arrests has reached record levels.

In the year to Oct 1, border agents recorded 1.73million encounters with migrants.

The US immigration courts are currently backed up with 1.5million cases.

Misael Hernandez, a migration expert in Mexico, said that many shelters in the north of the country were already struggling to handle waves of migrant arrivals from the south, and would now also have to deal with returns from the US.

He said that the reinstatement of the Remain in Mexico policy was “an example of Trump’s power in Congress and the US courts to go against Biden’s promises”.