Salvadoran migrant Carlos Gutierrez, part of a caravan of mostly Hondurans heading to the US, puts his shoes on at the international border bridge which links Tecun Uman, Guatemala and Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, on January 21, 2020.  JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP via Getty Images

In a statement Monday, the Mexican government accused the caravan’s leaders of directing migrants to cross the river without considering how it would endanger children and other vulnerable members of the group. Five National Guard members sustained injuries as a result of Monday’s scuffle, the government said.

It’s not clear how many migrants were injured, but reports have indicated that at least some were. The Mexican government said it has provided medical care, including hospitalization, to migrants who have requested it, including some who appeared dehydrated.

Although some Hondurans intend to remain in Mexico and find jobs, most of those in the caravan are seeking transit through Mexico in the hopes of reaching the US border. It’s a signal that as long as violence and economic instability continues to drive Central American migrants out of their home countries, they will continue to seek refuge in the US — no matter how much the Trump administration pressures other nations to stop them.

What will happen to Hondurans in the caravan

As reports surfaced that a caravan was en route to the Mexican border last week, López Obrador had vowed that migrants could either request a work permit to remain in southern Mexico legally or claim asylum, but would not be permitted to travel to the US. Now, however, it appears that at least some of the migrants will be deported.

With the aid of the National Guard, Mexican immigration authorities sent over 400 of the migrants who attempted to cross the border to immigration detention facilities, where they will be screened to determine whether they have the right to remain in Mexico or will be sent back to Honduras. Women and children will be deported via plane, whereas others will travel via bus, according to the Mexican government.

As is standard practice in Mexico, those who claim asylum will be released from detention and processed by the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR). The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), which has recently expanded its presence in Mexico to eight offices, has agreed to help COMAR identify migrants with asylum claims, a spokesperson for the agency said.

Honduras produces high numbers of people seeking asylum: In 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, the US granted asylum to 2,048 migrants from Honduras, compared with 1,048 from Mexico, 3,471 from El Salvador, and 2,954 from Guatemala.

Honduras remains a hotbed of gang violence, largely perpetrated by the international criminal gang MS-13, which formed in Los Angeles and was transplanted to Central America following mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants with criminal histories in the 1990s. The gangs facilitate drug trafficking, extort local residents, and force teenage boys to join.

The country also has the fifth-highest homicide rate worldwide, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, as well as rampant government corruption and high rates of violence against women and LGBTQ individuals.

Hondurans likely won’t be able to seek asylum in the US

Migrants’ chances of evading Mexican authorities and being granted asylum in the US remain slim.

They may be returned to Mexico under the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). More than 56,000 migrants have been sent back to await decisions on their US asylum applications.

The Trump administration has also brokered a series of agreements with Central America’s “Northern Triangle” countries — Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras — that allow the US to send migrants back to those countries, though the agreement with Guatemala is the only one that has gone into effect so far.

The agreements resemble “safe third-country agreements,” a rarely used diplomatic tool that requires migrants to seek asylum in the countries they pass through by deeming those countries capable of offering them protection (though the Trump administration has been reluctant to use that term). Until recently, the US had this kind of agreement with just one country: Canada.

The administration has sought such agreements in Central America as a means of achieving Trump’s goal of driving down the number of migrants seeking refuge at the US-Mexico border by sending them back to the countries from which they came and passed through. Immigrant advocates argue that doing so could have deadly consequences.

Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/21/21075158/mexico-guatemala-border-crossing-honduran-migrants

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It’s impossible, and a New York Times report on Tuesday detailed how the Trump administration is drowning in the reality ignored by Congress.

The paper said that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Cissna told staff this week that operations abroad would close down so that resources could be directed “to handle the lengthy backlog in asylum applications from tens of thousands of migrants crossing the southern border every month.”

This means foreigners wanting to come to the U.S., Americans who want to move family from abroad, and otherwise legitimate asylum claims will no longer be processed in a timely, orderly way, if they are at all.

Immigration Services has been sounding the alarm on the overwhelming number of asylum cases since at least January 2018. The agency said then that it was instituting a policy to deal with the newest asylum cases first and work backward to older ones, a “last in, first out” approach meant to quickly deport illegal immigrants hoping to remain in the country at length.

That, of course, is to the detriment of asylum seekers who were here first and who may actually face persecution in their home countries. Those cases were pushed behind new ones of migrants who merely floated across the Rio Grande, hit the Texas bank, and found a border patrol agent to tell, “Asilo por favor!”

Back then, the agency said the backlog of asylum cases was more than 300,000. The backlog has more than doubled since then, due to our abhorrent open-border policy that allows anyone who sets foot on American soil to claim asylum — it’s very easy — guaranteeing them the right to stay here, at least until their court date, and up to 40 percent of asylum seekers don’t even turn up for those.

Democrats have opposed President Trump at every turn in addressing the southern border crisis. Even some Republicans have joined them. They will inevitably complain about the redirecting of resources to deal with the asylum backlog, too.

Members of Congress largely don’t have to deal with the ramifications of our immigration system, which the way it’s written says anyone who wants in and can set foot on land gets to stay. The violent MS-13 gang isn’t terrorizing their children’s schools. Their neighborhoods aren’t morphing into silos of completely foreign cultures.

OK, fine, I guess. But laws of supply and demand still apply, and right now, there is not enough supply to meet the demand at the southern border.

Something has to give. Unfortunately for any American wanting to adopt a foreign baby or any military service member wanting to bring their new spouse home from abroad, it might be them.

Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/overwhelmed-southern-border-now-wrecking-the-legal-immigration-process

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