The U.N. is flying and busing migrants through Mexico back to Central America

[Elderberry]

LA Times By MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE 8/30/2019

A United Nations agency, with funding from the U.S. State Department, is transporting thousands of immigrants from the U.S.-Mexico border back to Central America in a program that has drawn the ire of migrant legal advocates. The advocates question whether migrants fully understand their rights when they accept free plane and bus tickets home.
The program was in full swing Tuesday in this border city opposite El Paso, where 63 Honduran migrants boarded two buses chartered by the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, which has transported more than 2,200 Central American migrants home from Juarez and Tijuana so far this year, a spokesman said.

The $1.65-million program, called Assisted Voluntary Return, is funded by the State Department through next month, when it’s expected to expand east to the border cities of Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.

“We’ll continue as long as there is a need and people are seeking assistance returning home,” said Christopher Gascon, chief of mission in Mexico for the IOM, known there as OIM.

Gascon said his agency is trying to protect migrants making the perilous journey south.

“They face the same dangers on their way home as they do on the way north. That clearly demonstrates the need,” he said.

Migrants using the program include those who have given up on attempting to cross the border, those seeking political asylum in the U.S. for the first time and asylum seekers returned by U.S. immigration officials to await the outcome of their U.S. immigration court cases in Mexico under the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.

Migrant legal advocates worry about the latter group, saying the U.N. agency is encouraging asylum seekers to drop their cases without sufficient legal advice, an allegation IOM officials dispute.

So far, 37,578 asylum seekers have been returned to Mexico to await the outcome of their U.S. immigration cases. Of those, about 400 have boarded IOM buses home, Gascon said.

More: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-29/the-u-n-is-flying-and-busing-migrants-through-mexico-back-to-central-america

[Right_in_Virginia]

The U.N. is flying and busing migrants through Mexico back to Central America
LA Times, Aug 30, 2019

JUAREZ, Mexico —  A United Nations agency, with funding from the U.S. State Department, is transporting thousands of immigrants from the U.S.-Mexico border back to Central America in a program that has drawn the ire of migrant legal advocates. The advocates question whether migrants fully understand their rights when they accept free plane and bus tickets home.

The program was in full swing Tuesday in this border city opposite El Paso, where 63 Honduran migrants boarded two buses chartered by the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, which has transported more than 2,200 Central American migrants home from Juarez and Tijuana so far this year, a spokesman said.

The $1.65-million program, called Assisted Voluntary Return, is funded by the State Department through next month, when it’s expected to expand east to the border cities of Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.

“We’ll continue as long as there is a need and people are seeking assistance returning home,” said Christopher Gascon, chief of mission in Mexico for the IOM, known there as OIM.

Gascon said his agency is trying to protect migrants making the perilous journey south.

“They face the same dangers on their way home as they do on the way north. That clearly demonstrates the need,” he said.

Migrants using the program include those who have given up on attempting to cross the border, those seeking political asylum in the U.S. for the first time and asylum seekers returned by U.S. immigration officials to await the outcome of their U.S. immigration court cases in Mexico under the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.


More:  https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-29/the-u-n-is-flying-and-busing-migrants-through-mexico-back-to-central-america

[Mod5]

Topics merged.