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Mexico (AFP) – Mexico and the United States agreed to partially reactivate “Stay in Mexico”, a policy of the Donald Trump government through which migrants must wait in Mexican territory for the response to their asylum requests in the neighboring country. The pact comes after the US justice ordered the re-implementation of the program, which had been repealed after the inauguration of Joe Biden.
“Mexico has decided that, for humanitarian reasons and temporarily, it will not return to their countries of origin certain migrants who have an appointment to appear before an immigration judge in the United States to request asylum,” the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“Stay in Mexico” will be restored after negotiations with the United States, where justice – in response to a lawsuit brought by the conservative states of Texas and Missouri – ordered last August to reimplement Trump’s immigration policy, which returned to Mexican territory migrants. This is a setback for Democratic President Joe Biden, who had ended the practice when he took office last January.
In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security reported that once Mexico reactivates its program, it will make some changes to its migrant protection protocol (MPP) to streamline the process and respond to the concerns of the Mexican government.
One of the main commitments of the United States is that the asylum application processes be “concluded in six months” from the moment the applicant is returned to Mexico and to speed up communication and information provided to migrants.
It is expected that starting Monday, the migrants will be returned to Mexico. Those whose situation is considered vulnerable will be excluded from the MPP.
On the border with Mexico there are migrants who have had to wait more than a year for their hearings and as of March 2020, due to the covid-19 pandemic, the process has been delayed even more.
Vaccines for migrants, one of the conditions of the agreement
In the negotiation, the Mexican Foreign Ministry pointed out, the need to apply measures against covid-19 was also raised, such as medical check-ups and the availability of vaccines for migrants.
The United States pledged in response that everyone who is enrolled in the MPP will be vaccinated.
Both countries will collaborate so that there are safe shelters for migrants, that they have efficient transportation to cross the border and that they can access a job and health services in Mexican territory.
Mexico, which for years refused to receive migrants back, accepted Trump’s policies after the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the presidency in December 2018.
Tens of thousands of migrants were returned to Mexico under this policy, saturating shelters in different border cities and forcing some to improvise camps near international bridges.
After Biden ended this policy, the migrants were gradually received into the United States.
The flow of migrants through Mexico, mostly Central Americans, has increased in the last year with more than 190,000 who have been detected by Mexican authorities between January and September, three times more than in 2020. Some 74,300 have been deported.
The Biden government maintains that the MPP has imposed unjustifiable humanitarian costs and does not attack the root causes of illegal immigration, so that once the injunction is lifted, it will be canceled again, the Department of Homeland Security said.
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