The US government will stop sending asylum seekers to Mexico while the courts examine their cases. This measure was put in place under former President Donald Trump in 2019.
With this Trump-era migration policy, more than 70,000 people would have been sent to Mexico in this capacity. The end of this migration policy will have a direct result: asylum seekers will no longer be forced to wait in Mexico for an answer from the migration judge. Until now, they found themselves near the border, exposed to trafficking, or even rape and murder.
Conrado Zepeda, director in Mexico of the Jesuit refugee aid service, therefore welcomes this decision. But the people who call on his organization are not relieved. “ The migrants we meet are frustrated and desperate for some, because they know that they cannot obtain asylum if they left their country for economic reasons, he explains. And so even with the end of the policy called “stay in Mexico”, the number of migrants who will be able to enter the United States will decrease. »
For him, the announcement of the end of this measure three months before the mid-term elections is also a political coup by Joe Biden against conservative states like Texas, which wanted this policy to be maintained. For the time being, the provisions put in place at the start of the pandemic to deport migrants, without them having time to file an asylum application, will continue to apply at the borders of the United States.
► To read: In Washington, the Mexican president wants to plead for more work visas in the face of illegal immigration