US Starts Sending Asylum-Seekers Back to Mexico to Wait Out Claims

New Homeland Security policy pushes humanitarian issue south for now, but could be blocked by a judge

A migrant camp situated 16 kilometres from the U.S. border, fills up with Central American migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, on Dec. 2, 2018. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—A new effort by the Trump administration to deter thousands of Central American migrants from traveling north to seek asylum in the United States was enacted on Jan. 24—for now, only at the San Ysidro border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.

The effort, called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), is an attempt to rein in meritless asylum claims and stop thousands of illegal immigrants from being released into the country, never to be seen again.