Incoming Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has agreed to let the US make Central American asylum-seekers Mexico’s problem.
The Trump administration has reportedly found a way to force asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico during the months — or longer — it takes to apply for protection in the US, making the tens of thousands of Central Americans and others who flee northward to the US each year essentially Mexico’s problem to solve.
On Saturday, Nick Miroff and Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post reported that the Donald Trump administration had made a deal with the incoming president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, to implement a “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Contemplated since the earliest days of the Trump administration — one of the first executive orders the president signed instructed the Department of Homeland Security to look into the prospect — the policy would bar asylum-seekers from entering the US until their applications were approved (or until they got deported) unless they had a “reasonable fear” of staying in Mexico.
