Since January — when the Department of Homeland Security expanded the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols to include Nogales, Arizona — about 160 people seeking asylum have been returned across the border to wait for their court dates. Arizona Republic reporter Rafael Carranza discussed the program’s impact so far.
“A lot of the nonprofits that help migrants in Nogales, Sonora, are concerned about what the future looks like because there are already thousands of migrants waiting to claim asylum,” Carranza said.
Migrants sent to Nogales have court in El Paso. They have to cross in Juarez, which is almost 300 miles away. “You have to go through some frankly very dangerous territory. Especially in the mountainous areas between Sonora and Chihuahua,” Carranza said.
Since January 2019, more than 56,000 migrants have been returned to Mexico to await their immigration hearings in the U.S. Seven ports of entry across the southern border currently implement the program.