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US, Mexico Widen Asylum Crackdown to Push Back All Migrants

Associated Press

   XALAPA, MEXICO - A Trump administration program forcing asylum-seekers
   to wait in Mexico has evolved into a sweeping rejection of all forms of
   migrants, with both countries quietly working to keep people out of the
   U.S. despite threats to the migrants' safety.
   The results serve the goals of both governments, which have targeted
   unauthorized migration at the behest of President Donald Trump, who
   threatened Mexico with potentially crippling tariffs earlier this year
   to force action.
   Some people sent to wait in the Mexican border cities of Nuevo Laredo
   and Matamoros said they never requested asylum, including Wilfredo
   Alvarez, a laborer from Honduras. He crossed the Rio Grande without
   permission to look for work to support his seven children and was
   unexpectedly put into the program. He was sent back to Mexico with a
   future court date.

   'They threw us away'
   ``We thought that if they caught us, they would deport us to our
   country, but it was not that way,'' Alvarez said. ``They threw us away
   here to Mexico, but we are not from here and it's very difficult.''
   Others said they were never asked if they feared persecution in Mexico,
   despite U.S. government rules that say migrants should not be sent
   there if they face that risk.
   U.S. border agents give each returned migrant a date for an immigration
   court hearing at tents set up near the border. But the Mexican
   government has bused hundreds of migrants to cities around 1,000 miles
   (1,600 kilometers) away, ostensibly for their safety. And there's no
   promise that Mexico will bring migrants back.
   Instead, Mexico is offering to return many Central Americans to the
   Guatemala border, and others are choosing to leave at their own
   expense.

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