Starting Friday, asylum seekers approaching the Tijuana-San Diego port of entry will be returned to Mexico to wait out their court cases, in the Trump administration’s biggest change yet to U.S. immigration policy. And they could be waiting several months, if not years.The Department of Homeland Security is planning to implement the dramatic change on its policies for handling asylum seekers at the San Ysidro port of entry, the busiest border crossing into the U.S., anonymous DHS officials told both NBC News and the Washington Post on Thursday. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen announced the controversial policy to the House Judiciary Committee last month, decrying the current system through which asylum seekers can wait out court cases on U.S. soil if they display “credible fear” in returning to their home countries.“The process takes many years; in the meantime, the illegal alien is in the interior,” Nielsen told the committee in December, adding that undocumented immigrants fail to show up for court cases that can occur long after they’ve entered the country.As of Friday, asylum seekers approaching San Ysidro will be processed by federal immigration officials and forced back to Tijuana until their court date in San Diego. When that day comes, according to NBC News, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will provide transportation from San Ysidro to the immigration court.
The policy, which DHS is calling “migrant protection protocols,” is intended to “provide a safer and more orderly process that will discourage individuals from attempting illegal entry and making false claims to stay in the U.S., and allow more resources to be dedicated to individuals who legitimately qualify for asylum,” according to the agency’s website.Currently, there’s a backlog of more than 800,000 cases lodged in U.S. immigration courts due to a shortage of judges and surplus of cases. That backlog is growing even larger during the partial government shutdown, now in its fifth week, since immigration judges are furloughed. Additionally, thousands of migrants waiting in Tijuana are already suffering amid overcrowding and strained resources.About 110,000 people enter the U.S. through the San Ysidro crossing each day.
Some people — like children traveling on their own or migrants from “vulnerable populations — may be excluded from the new border policy, though, according to Reuters.Additionally, Mexican officials announced Wednesday that a caravan of 10,000 Central American migrants had requested visas to cross the country’s southern border, according to the Washington Post, although that caravan could disperse or decrease in size before reaching a port on the U.S.-Mexico border.Cover: U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents attend operational readiness exercises at the San Ysidro port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border, seen from Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
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