What started as a trickle has turned into a flood. The Trump administration has now forcibly returned more than 11,000 vulnerable asylum-seekers to Mexico under inhumane policy—“and the number is likely to increase dramatically in coming months,” Mother Jones reports.
A Honduran man became the first asylum-seeker to be returned under Migrant Protection Protocols, or “Remain in Mexico,” at the end of January, a single figure that ballooned to over 1,600 asylum-seekers by the end of April. Just days later, that number reached 3,300. The administration has been forcing vulnerable people to wait out their asylum cases, advocates said, in a process that has been a logistical nightmare.
Immigration lawyer Taylor Levy said last month “that families are being dropped off on the streets of Ciudad Juárez, across the border, where they cannot find space in shelters that are at capacity. Many, she said, are being targeted by robbers and kidnappers. ‘We have had multiple families kidnapped for extortion,’ she said.” Others have said that U.S. officials sent them back to Mexico but kept their documentation, which could then leave them stranded.
“U.S.-based immigration lawyers say failing to return documents has been a longstanding problem among migrants released into the United States or deported back to their home countries,” Reuters reported. “But the attorneys say the issue is more worrisome in the context of the MPP program, because asylum seekers are waiting in a third country and are more vulnerable to arrest and detention. DHS officials did not comment on the issue.”
Donald Trump’s self-created tariff threat stands to worsen the U.S. treatment of asylum-seekers. “In recent weeks, U.S. officials have been sending roughly 250 asylum seekers per day back to Mexico. Under the deal reached Friday, U.S. officials said they expect to increase the rate to 1,000 per day,” The Washington Post reported.