The Trump Administration Has Started Sending Brazilian Asylum Seekers Back to Mexico

The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it is sending Brazilian migrants arriving at the southern border back to Mexico to wait for decisions on their asylum applications in the US.

It’s part of the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to expand the “Remain in Mexico” program, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), under which the administration has already sent some 60,000 asylum seekers to Mexico to wait for their court dates in the US, often for months at a time.

Trump administration officials have touted the program as one of the primary drivers of the approximately 75 percent decline in apprehensions at the southern border since last May.

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Until recently, most immigrant advocates thought that only Spanish-speaking migrants would be subject to MPP. But the Department of Homeland Security clarified in a statement Wednesday that there is no such limit on the program. Indeed, citizens of Trinidad and Tobago and Albania have also been sent back to Mexico under MPP in addition to Brazilians, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Migration.

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It’s not clear at this point how many Brazilians have been sent back to Mexico under MPP. Some have been returned to Ciudad Juárez, which is right across the border from El Paso, Texas.

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The number of Brazilians arrested by US Customs and Border Protection spiked last year to around 18,000, up from just 1,600 the year before.

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Before MPP, both those who waited in line at the border and those who were apprehended between ports of entry would have been held at a US Customs and Border Protection processing facility until a border agent determined whether they should be released, transferred to immigration detention, or deported. But now, they are mostly sent back to Mexico and have only been allowed to enter the US to attend their immigration court hearings.

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