WASHINGTON (AP) — Migrants heading to the southwest border to seek asylum in the United States will have to wait in Mexico until their claims are processed, under an agreement between the two countries announced on Thursday that will affect tens of thousands of people each month.
Only about 9 percent of people are actually granted asylum. The Trump administration says too many migrants make false claims.
“They will not be able to disappear into the United States,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said on Thursday in remarks before 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.”
Discussions on the arrangement have been going on between the two countries for months, well before the new leadership took over in Mexico on Dec. 1. On Thursday, the Mexican foreign ministry said Mexico had agreed to it on a temporary basis for humanitarian reasons, and it would affect those “who entered that country or had been apprehended at border entry points, and who have been interviewed by that country’s immigration authorities and who have received a court date to appear before an immigration judge.”
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt said the plan was illegal. “This plan cannot be done lawfully and will result in countless people in life-threatening situations.”
The decision comes as the courts have blocked efforts to harden asylum rules.
More than 100,000 immigrants were caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in October and November. Nearly half of them were traveling in family groups that included children, according to statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
While the number of immigrants caught crossing the border illegally has fallen since the 1990s and early 2000s, U.S. authorities have been grappling in recent years with an increase in children traveling alone or with family.
It is not illegal to cross the border without a visa to apply for asylum. Immigrant advocates say violence in the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras is driving people north, and many are coming to seek asylum. Nearly 100,000 immigrants requested initial asylum screenings during the fiscal year ending in September, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Most of the cases were filed in Texas.
Trump administration officials say one of the major pull factors for migrants coming across the border is the idea that they can wait in the United States for months or even years as their asylum cases progress. They argue many disappear into the U.S. Forcing them to wait in Mexico will cut down on false asylum claims. The policy change applies only to migrants coming from countries other than Mexico, officials said.
Thousands of migrants have come up from Central America in recent weeks as part of caravans. President Donald Trump used his national security powers to put in place regulations that denied asylum to anyone caught crossing illegally, but a judge has halted that change as a lawsuit progresses.
Nielsen said in a statement the policy would be done legally.
“This will also allow us to focus more attention on those who are actually fleeing persecution,” she said in a statement.
___
Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
Whelp. I think we need to start considering dusting off the chairs in Nurenburg. Yes, I’m a hyperbole kind of guy…but what is happening at our southern border as far as I’m concerned has reached the Crimes against Humanity threshold and frankly the entire HS and specifically CPB needs to answer to their crimes.
“Please note,” she added, “if anyone is killed while they are waiting for us to deny their valid asylum claims we will have to close their cases with extreme prejudice.”
Heard this on Morning Edition on the way in to work this morning. The NPR story said it was basically a coordinated announcement, us and the Mexican government. And the very first question I had was “I wonder how much we’re paying them to do this.”
And, wouldn’t you know it, the report went on to talk about Mexico’s proposal for what they’re describing as a Marshall Plan type of initiative to improve the economic conditions that underly so much of the migration … which would need some serious money behind it, if it’s going to actually have an impact.
Not exactly coincidentally, they then also mentioned the extremely low unemployment rate in many of the border areas of Mexico, where the maquiladores would be happy to suck up any spare labor they could.
So here’s how I expect this to play out. The Greatest Negotiator in the World is going to make a deal where the refugees are held in Mexico and given work permits while they wait for our (intentionally) broken process to grind along, and we send Mexico a Little Something to help cover the costs of hosting the applicants on their side of the border.
So, in essence, we will be using taxpayer dollars to subsidize Mexico to get more cheap labor for the factories that compete with U.S. manufacturing. Fricking brilliant.
My first thought, too, was how much money is Mr. Best Deal Maker promising Mexico to do this for them?
In more interesting women of power news, current winner on Jeopardy was bassist in all woman band The Runaways, and according to her Wiki page her sister and brother in law are somewhat famous too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvmIwhXe6rEShe majored in Linguistics and Italian, so I told my son that majored in Linguistics and Spanish to tune up his Ukulele and get busy!