‘Stay in Mexico’: US sends two men to Mexico under revival policy | Migration Issues

The United States has sent the first two people to Mexico a policy restored during the Trump era which forces asylum seekers to await in Mexico their US criminal case.

The two men were returned to a crossroads in Ciudad Juarez opposite El Paso, Texas, at the bottom of the court Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).

The administration of US President Joe Biden is the Mexican government he announced last week they agreed to re-launch the hard-hitting program, also known as “Stay in Mexico”.

The move has been widely criticized by observers around the world and human rights groups who have criticized the policy as a “humanitarian catastrophe” that puts the lives of asylum seekers at risk. Violence is rampant in the border towns of Mexico.

CBP told us that the two older men had returned to the Cd. Juárez at 9:20 am today, the first people to settle in Mexico / MPP 2.0, are the only MPP to return today. CBP escorted them to the MX border line between the bridge, where Mexican migrants and soldiers met. https://t.co/FVdkumOLza pic.twitter.com/oDEyc0aU2x

– Julia Neusner (@JuliaNeusner) December 8, 2021

One of the two men returned to Mexico under the same regimen Wednesday, identified as Enrique Manzanares from Nicaragua, who said he was a little sad but thanked God he was still alive.

“In the end, nothing was lost,” Manzanares told Reuters. Some of us can afford it, some don’t.

A Mexican official confirmed the resumption of the MPP, saying it would be Wednesday for the two men.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry said last week that the rollout of the program was necessary for the US to offer the COVID-19 vaccine to asylum seekers and vulnerable groups.

Under the MPP, which was first established by former US President Donald Trump in 2019, nearly 70,000 asylum seekers, including children, have been victimized by cartel abusers and have been living in makeshift camps for months, even years, in the border towns of Mexico .

During his first year in office, Biden completed a new enrollment in the program, claiming that the process was brutal, and in June, the MPP was abolished. But two US states – Texas and Missouri – sued government officials, saying the policy had been “wrongly abolished.”

In August, a Trump-appointed judge in Texas ruled in favor of governments and ordered Biden officials to reinstate the program.

A spokesman for the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Wednesday said the country’s security department had begun rebuilding the MPP in one place.

“For security reasons, DHS does not share information such as where it came from or the number of people it registered,” a CBP spokesman told Reuters.

Once fully operational, the MPP return will take place at seven ports of entry in San Diego, Calexico, Nogales, El Paso, Eagle Pass, Laredo, and Brownsville, CBP said.

Civil society groups have criticized Biden officials for resuming the program.

“This policy is unfair and is used as a barrier to illegal border crossings – a place where people can legally flee – to become more and more vulnerable to human rights abuses,” said Tami Goodlette, chief prosecutor at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES). ), he said in a statement last week.

“The Biden government needs to understand that there is no way to rehabilitate so-called ‘Migrant Protection Protocols’ morally or compassionately,” he said.

Chapter 42 is still in place where the US reopened its border with Mexico for unnecessary travelers. [Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters]

Biden, who campaigned for promises to establish immigration reforms, has changed several of Trump’s policy on immigration.

But by record – high numbers arriving at the US-Mexico border, Biden retained “Chapter 42”- another concept first introduced by Trump that allows U.S. border officials to chase down arrivals citing the dangers of coronavirus.

The law still exists as much as the US did it reopened its boundaries and Mexico for unwanted travelers.