U.S. Starts Returning Migrants to Mexico

JAKARTADAILY.ID - The U.S. has begun returning migrants to the Mexican city of Tijuana on Wednesday, continuing a Trump-era scheme that forces asylum seekers to stand in line for U.S. court hearings in Mexico.

Two migrants, who are Colombian nationals, were returned to Tijuana across the border from California on Wednesday with future court proceedings in the U.S., Reuters reported today.

The U.S. and Mexico previously agreed last month to resume the contentious Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has tried to overturn many tough immigration policies put in place by his predecessor, Donald Trump. Biden terminated MPP shortly after his January inauguration in order to pursue what he called a more humane strategy to immigration.

However, a U.S. federal judge decided in August that Biden's move did not follow appropriate protocol and ordered MPP to be reinstated.

The initiative was reintroduced in December at the border crossing between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. According to the International Organization of Migration, more than 200 individuals have been returned to Mexico since the MPP was restarted.

About 70,000 asylum-seeking migrants seeking asylum were forced to wait weeks, if not years, in Mexico for a U.S. court date under the original 2019 program rather than being able to await their hearings in the U.S.

The UN refugee agency and civil rights organizations have slammed the resumption of Trump's program and said the migrants are at risk of kidnapping, rape, and robbery in perilous Mexican border areas.