U.S. to require asylum seekers to wait in Mexico
Homeland chief: Move will prevent cheating
WASHINGTON — People seeking asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico no longer will be released in the United States and will be required to wait in Mexico under a policy announced Thursday that marks one of the most significant moves by President Donald Trump to reshape the immigration system.
The measure is a response to a growing number of Central American asylum seekers who are typically released in the United States while their cases slowly wind through clogged immigration courts. It does not apply to children traveling alone or to Mexican asylum seekers.
The announcement came two days after the United States pledged $10.6 billion in aid for Central America and southern Mexico to make people feel less compelled to leave.
Critics, including some legal experts, said migrants would be unsafe in some Mexican border towns and said the United States was illegally abandoning its humanitarian role, hinting at a court challenge.
The government of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office Dec. 1, said that foreigners will have temporary permission to remain in Mexico on humanitarian grounds after getting a notice to appear in U.S. immigration court and they will be allowed to seek work authorization.
Asylum seekers who pass an initial screening in the United States, about three of four do, typically wait years before their cases are resolved, allowing them to put down roots in the United States. Many are fitted with electronic ankle monitors.
Administration officials say many are gaming the system and making false claims as a way to stay in the United States. While most pass their initial screening, only about 9 percent are granted asylum.
“They will not be able to disappear into the United States,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told the House Judiciary Committee. “They will have to wait for approval. If they are granted asylum by a U.S. judge, they will be welcomed into America. If they are not, they will be removed to their home countries.”
Nielsen said in a statement that the move “will also allow us to focus more attention on those who are actually fleeing persecution.”
Experts in Mexico doubted whether Lopez Obrador would face any backlash.
“These are not humiliating concessions, they’re quite reasonable,” said Federico Estevez, a political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. “Lopez Obrador may absorb a cost, but it’s relatively small price to get your neck out of the noose on the immigration issue.”
Estevez noted that anti-migrant sentiment had sprung up on the northern border, especially in Tijuana, where the caravans have been marooned.
“I don’t think you can find on the Mexican side much of a coherent stance against these concessions,” Estevez said. “I don’t think you have a very strong constituency on this side” in favor of the Central American migrants.