Trump Administration Begins Returning Asylum Seekers To Mexico
The Trump administration began Tuesday its new policy of sending migrants seeking asylum back to Mexico, with the return of a Central American man over the border to Tijuana, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed.
The migrant, a Honduran man, was sent back over the border under the Trump administration’s new policy requiring some asylum seekers to remain in Mexico instead of the U.S. while their immigration cases play out.
The administration announced the new policy last week, saying it was planning to begin turning asylum-seekers at the San Ysidro Port of Entry back across the border to Tijuana to await future immigration hearings, which will take place in San Diego.
Thousands of Central American migrants are already waiting in Tijuana, many living in shelters and in poor conditions.
The asylum-seeker taken to Mexico on Tuesday was identified as Carlos Catarlo Gomez by a source with Mexico’s National Immigration Institute in Baja California, Mexico, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity.
Upon arriving back in Tijuana, Catarlo Gomez asked for directions to a shelter, the source said.
A top Mexican immigration official said Monday that his country will accept migrants only between the ages of 18 to 60 and only at the border crossing in Tijuana, according to the Associated Press.
