Tijuana braces for next iteration of 'Remain in Mexico' asylum policy

SAN DIEGO — When the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy was enacted the first time around in 2019, Tijuana, Mexico, became a place of waiting.

Migrant shelters were at capacity as asylum seekers from around the world settled in for the duration of their immigration court cases unfolding in the U.S., stretching for months or more than a year. Their housing was so tenuous that the U.S. immigration court had difficulty notifying migrants of upcoming hearings. Finding an attorney to represent them from across the border was tough.

And robbers and kidnappers found the waiting migrants to be easy targets.

In an executive order signed on his first day in office, President Donald Trump reinstated the program, known officially as Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP. However, the Mexican government has not formally agreed to it, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other agencies have offered little clarity on how the policy would work a second time around.

The Mexican government previously went along with receiving non-Mexican asylum seekers under former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration.

“(The authority) permits the Secretary of DHS to return certain applicants for admission to the adjoining country from which they are arriving pending the completion of removal proceedings,” reads a statement from Homeland Security.

When the program was first implemented, it was criticized by human rights groups for putting asylum seekers in danger and leaving many without proper legal representation. At one point, the San Diego immigration court system was overwhelmed by the number of additional cases.

Former President Joe Biden, who once called the policy “inhumane,” tried to wind down the policy, but the plan was challenged in court. In December 2021, the Biden administration had to reinstate the program amid litigation brought by Texas and Missouri. Later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the policy could end.

It is estimated that under the policy nearly 70,000 people were sent back to Mexico between 2019 and 2021 to await their cases, according to a report from the nonpartisan organization American Immigration Council. The San Ysidro-Tijuana port of entry was the first along the border to implement it.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that there are ongoing conversations with the U.S. on a number of immigration matters.

When asked Tuesday by the press about Mexico agreeing to receive U.S. planes with deportees from other countries, Sheinbaum said that “more than agreements, there is coordination” with the U.S., which she said has been the case for a long time. Under previous agreements, Mexico has accepted people from certain countries.

‘Expecting the worst’

Those who aid migrants at the border recall the challenges that arose the first time the Remain in Mexico policy was in place and are bracing for its return.

“It created a very difficult and complex situation for people who had to find shelter and a place to continue waiting,” said Adriana Jasso, program coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego. “(This second time) there are still aspects that are not clear.”

The number of migrant encounters at the U.S. border is at its lowest level in years, due to the Biden administration’s executive action to restrict asylum, as well as Mexico’s crackdown on immigration.

Trump also ended the Biden-era CBP One appointment process that migrants used to secure a time to present themselves at a port of entry for an asylum screening.

The loss of an official way to ask for asylum has stranded hundreds of migrants at the Mexico’s northern border, and many are still weighing their options — whether to apply for permission to stay in Mexico, return to their home states or countries, or wait in Mexico to see how the MPP policy unfolds, some of them said last week.

“We will wait to see what these new requirements will be to be able to migrate legally,” said Orlando Lugo, an asylum seeker from Venezuela whose appointment was canceled after he waited more than a year for one. “I am ready to follow all the legal steps. We are here, we have already traveled through seven countries.”

Judith Cabrera de la Rocha, co-director of the Border Line Crisis Center, which houses migrant families in Tijuana, said she is “expecting the worst” as she waits for MPP to begin again.

Cabrera noted that the first time the policy was implemented, it was done with the complicity of both countries, but “neither of them can guarantee the safety or the basic needs of the people they are going to leave stranded at the border.”

A 2022 report by Human Rights First found that of nearly 2,700 asylum seekers interviewed who were returned to Mexico and enrolled during the program’s reimplementation, about 41% reported violent attacks while in Mexico.

“Of all the criticisms we can make of CBP One, it was one of the most orderly ways there ever was to seek asylum,” she said. “I think it’s a bad move (to shut it down), not only because of what it means for the population we work for, but because it’s enabling human smugglers.”

Immigrant rights advocates agree that Trump’s policies could result in more people seeking illegal, and more dangerous, routes to seek protection in the U.S.

“Migration cannot be curbed nor can it be stopped,” she said. “It is inherent to humanity, we have to understand that. All these containment actions are precisely the most inadequate thing there is to deal with the issue,” Cabrera said.

Sheltering Mexican deportees

While immigration conversations between Mexico and the United States continue, the first of nine deportee aid centers planned for Mexico’s northern border opened in Tijuana on Saturday, part of a program announced by Sheinbaum in response to Trump’s immigration policies.

In Trump’s first week in office, Mexico received 4,094 deportees, “the vast majority of them Mexicans,” Sheinbaum said Monday at her daily press briefing — a number that does not mark “a significant increase” compared to other weeks, she added.

Mexican authorities have turned a former event venue into an aid center that includes a temporary shelter for 2,600 people. Officials stressed that the site will exclusively house Mexican deportees, and other migrant populations, including asylum seekers from other countries, will be assisted at the city’s more than 40 migrant shelters, which are mostly run by nonprofits.

The old Flamingos building, about 4 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border and off a busy boulevard, will serve as a reception center for deportees for the foreseeable future.

“They are under a lot of stress given the situation they are in,” Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila said after touring the site. “Here, they will find a place where they will be oriented, supported and provided with everything they need to make the decision to return to their homes.”

Ávila said Saturday that so far the state has not seen a notable increase in deportations from the U.S. to Baja California.

Mario Delgado, Mexico’s secretary of education, who attended on behalf of the federal government, said all of the center’s services will be free, including transportation to people’s home states if they choose.

“The idea is not for them to stay here,” Delgado said. “Here they are welcomed, they are taken care of, they are sheltered, they are given a great support, but the idea is that they go back to their states.”

Delgado said they will not be given a specific time to make a decision and stressed that no one will be forced out. Many deportees have historically chosen to stay at the northern border to be closer to their families still living in the U.S., shelter operators have noted.

The site is guarded at all times by the Mexican National Guard. The first two floors will be used to house deportees, one for families, women and children, and the other for single men.

Upon arrival, deportees receive a personal hygiene kit, new clothes, and toys or coloring books for the children. After check-in, they can obtain Mexican documentation and request $100 in social assistance. Those who wish can sign up for three months of health insurance, as well as mental health services and employment opportunities.

The upper level includes a dining room run by the Mexican Army, as well as bathrooms, showers and a laundry area. The cost of the operation was not disclosed.

The first deportees arrived at the aid center this week. An 18-year-old man from Culiacán told journalists that he was detained after crossing the border on Monday and deported on Wednesday.

Other deportees or those waiting for entrance to the United States will end up at shelters run by nonprofits. Cabrera from Border Line Crisis Center noted a lack of coordination between the government and non-governmental organizations and said that nonprofits are asking the governor to ensure protection from crime and police harassment for both nonprofit migrant shelters and immigrant-rights workers.

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