More asylum applicants to be sent back over border

WASHINGTON — Border officials are trying to more than quadruple the number of asylum seekers sent back over the southern border each day, a major expansion of a top government effort to address the swelling number of Central Americans arriving in the country, a Trump administration official said Saturday.

It is the latest attempt to ease a straining immigration system that officials say is at the breaking point. Hundreds of officers who usually screen cargo and vehicles at ports of entry were reassigned to help manage migrants. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen asked for volunteers from nonimmigration agencies within her department, sent a letter to Congress this past week requesting resources and broader authority to deport families faster, and she met with Central American and Mexican officials.

The efforts are being made while President Trump is doubling down on threats to shutter the U.S.-Mexico border entirely, a move that would have serious economic repercussions for both the U.S. and Mexico but wouldn’t stop migrants from crossing between ports. On Saturday, the administration announced it was cutting aid to to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the Central American countries home to most of the migrants.

Right now, a total of about 60 asylum seekers a day are returned to Mexico at the San Ysidro and Calexico stations in California and at the El Paso port in Texas to wait out their cases, the official said. They are allowed to return to the U.S. for court dates. With a backlog of more than 700,000 immigration cases, asylum seekers can wait years for their cases to progress, and officials say some people game the system in order to live in the U.S.

Officials hope to have as many as 300 people returned per day by the end of the week, focusing particularly on those who come in between ports of entry, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The process so far has been slow-going, and such a sizable increase may be difficult to achieve. The plan has already been marred by confusion, scheduling glitches and an inability by some attorneys to reach their clients. In San Ysidro alone, Mexico had been prepared to accept up to 120 asylum seekers per week, but for the first six weeks only 40 people per week were returned.

Plus, U.S. officials must check if asylum seekers have 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. Children are not returned.