US expels thousands to Mexico after largely halting asylum
A U.S. Border Patrol agent wouldn’t let Jackeline Reyes explain why she and her 15-year-old daughter fled Honduras and needed asylum, pointing to the coronavirus. It was just days after the Trump administration essentially shut down the nation’s asylum system.
“The agent told us about the virus and that we couldn’t go further, but she didn’t let us speak or anything,” said Reyes, 35, who was shuttled on March 24 to Reynosa, Mexico, a violent border city.
President Donald Trump’s administration is relying on a seldom-used public health law to set aside decades-old national and international immigration laws. People seeking refuge in the U.S. are whisked to the nearest border crossing and returned to Mexico without a chance to apply for asylum. It may be the most aggressive clampdown on immigration by a president who’s made reducing asylum claims a top priority.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday that nearly 10,000 Mexicans and Central Americans have been “expelled” to Mexico since the rules took effect March 21. Mark Morgan, the agency’s acting commissioner, said the changes were “not about immigration.”
“What’s happening right now is a public health crisis driven by a global pandemic, which has resulted in a national emergency declared by this president to protect the health and safety of every American in this country,” he told reporters.
Mexico is providing critical support, agreeing to take migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, who accounted for well over half of all U.S. border arrests last year.
The Trump administration has offered little detail on the rules, which haven’t been challenged in court. The lack of specifics means the change got little attention when it went public March 20, the same day Trump announced at a news conference that the southern border was closed to nonessential travel.
The administration tapped a law allowing the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ban foreigners if their entry would create “a serious danger” to the spread of communicable disease. The U.S. has the most confirmed cases in the world by far. CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield issued a 30-day order and said he may extend it.
“The administration is able to do what they always wanted to do,” said Aaron Reichlin-melnick, policy counsel for the American Immigration Council, which has criticized the administration. “I don’t see this slowing down.”
Mexico said it won’t take unaccompanied children and other “vulnerable people.” Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, Mexico’s consul general in San Diego, said that includes people who are over 65, pregnant or sick.
The U.S. also is returning Central American children who travel with grandparents, siblings and other relatives, said a congressional aide who was briefed by Customs and Border Protection officials and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was not intended for public release. Previously, children who weren’t with parents or guardians were considered unaccompanied and automatically put into the asylum pipeline.