As illegal aliens pile up at Mexico’s border with Guatemala, many hoping to hit the U.S. border and apply for asylum, the Trump administration has delayed its plan to send migrants back across the border to Mexico to await adjudication of their claims.
Part of that plan’s purpose was to discourage illegal immigration, but whenever it launches, Mexico’s latest immigration action vis-a-vis the migrant hordes invading its territory, might undermine it.
That action is a new visa policy to allow members of the relentless invasion force stay in Mexico for a year.
12,000 Invaders Waiting
Citing Telemundo, the Spanish newspaper, Breitbart News reported that 12,000 “migrants,” many of whom traveled with the caravan that left San Pedro Sulas, Honduras, on January 15, await entry at the border of Guatemala.
That caravan, Breitbart noted, inspired Mexico to offer “humanitarian visas.” Unsurprisingly, 10,000 migrants immediately applied, as The New American (TNA) reported last week, citing the Washington Post. The Post put the number of adults and children in the caravan at 8,446 adults and 1,897 minors, figures that have certainly grown since then.
The New York Times reported that, “Mexican officials encouraged the migrants to apply for the humanitarian visa, and since then over 12,000 people, mostly Hondurans, have done so in this border town in southern Mexico.”
Those visas, plus the sheer size of the caravan, pose a danger to the U.S. border, as TNA reported. The visas mean the “migrants” can go anywhere they wish in Mexico, which in turn means they can head for the U.S. border unmolested by Mexican authorities.
“But while some in the caravan say they intend to remain in Mexico and avail themselves of government-sponsored jobs programs,’ the Times reported, “many plan to use the visas as safe-passage permits to ease their journey to Mexico’s northern border, where they hope to figure out a way to cross into the United States.”
Thus, President Trump assesed the situation correctly. “Mexico is doing NOTHING to stop the Caravan which is now fully formed and heading to the United States.”
Deportation Plan Delayed
Mexico’s refusal to stop the northbound migration however is bad enough. But even worse, as of Friday, the Trump administration had at least temporarily delayed sending migrants back to Mexico to await adjudication of their phony asylum claims, AFP reported.
The administration announced the plan on Thursday and posted a fact sheet at the website of the Department of Homeland Security.
The administration said its new Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) “will help restore a safe and orderly immigration process” and “discourage individuals from attempting illegal entry and making false claims to stay in the United States, and allow more resources to be dedicated to individuals who legitimately qualify for asylum.” It would help end the incentive for smugglers and traffickers to transport illegals to the border.
The MPP fact sheet cited the dramatic change in who enters the country illegally and expects permission to stay. Until recently, illegal aliens were mostly single Mexican men who were deported within 48 hours. But now more than “60% are family units and unaccompanied children and 60% are non-Mexican. In FY17, CBP apprehended 94,285 family units from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador (Northern Triangle) at the Southern border. Of those, 99% remain in the country today.”
Even worse, a whopping 2,000 illegal and inadmissible aliens hit the border each day in the first quarter of fiscal 2019, the fact sheet says. That’s about 180,000 through the 90 days.
And about 90 percent of asylum claims from the Northern Triangle are bogus, the fact sheet reported.
The goal, AFP reported, was returning 20 migrants per day to Mexico, but now the plan is on hold. Mexico “disagrees,” AFP reported, although “US and Mexican officials had said President Donald Trump’s controversial ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy would be put into effect Friday at noon” when the first 20 were to be returned at San Ysidro.
But as of Friday night, none were returned, and “Mexican authorities said the program had been delayed.”
The first returns will take place today “or later,” a Mexican source told AFP. “These are migrants who have a court date with a judge [to seek asylum], which means US authorities have accepted that their lives could actually be in danger. If anything happens to them in Mexico, their families could sue the US government for failing to protect them.”
But a foreign ministry spokesman told the news agency the government would, indeed, permit the migrants to return for “humanitarian” reasons.
The question is whether the MPP will be yet another frustrated immigration control initiative.
Photo of migrants at customs entry on the Guatemala side of Mexico’s southern border: AP Images
