Migrants Quickly Expelled by Trump Try Repeatedly to Cross

Edgar Alexis Lopez looks well-rested in photos he took before crossing the border illegally in mountains east of San Diego, flashing a wide grin in clean jeans.

Six hours later, the 24-year-old Mexican construction worker was out of water, exhausted after climbing over the border wall and convinced he would faint. Abandoned by his smuggling guide, he and his father called for help.

A rescue helicopter couldn’t land in the steep terrain, but authorities dropped water before border agents arrived and whisked them back to Tijuana, Mexico. Lopez quickly recovered and began planning another attempt to reach San Diego, where he hopes to earn a more steady living. He tried twice more in the following days, turning around before he got caught.

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After a slew of profound changes by the Trump administration to limit asylum, the coronavirus brought it to a halt. With immigration laws largely suspended at the border since March, Mexicans and people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who enter the U.S. illegally are immediately expelled without even a piece of paper, generally within two hours and with no chance to plead for asylum — the post-Holocaust system to protect people around the world from torture and persecution at home. Facing no consequences, migrants are more determined to keep trying until they succeed.

The suspension of asylum combined with the introduction of “express deportations,” as migrants call them, accelerated a shift in who is crossing the border illegally: more Mexican men who come for economic reasons and far fewer from Central America, Africa and elsewhere seeking asylum.

Dismantling asylum may be the most significant way President Donald Trump has reshaped the immigration system, which he has arguably done more to change than any U.S. president. He’s thrilled supporters with an “America first” message and infuriated critics who call his signature domestic issue insular, xenophobic and even racist.

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Under the rapid expulsions that began in March, 37% of those caught had been picked up in the previous year, up from 7% in the 2019 fiscal year. The annual figure hasn’t topped 14% since the Border Patrol began keeping track seven years ago.

Recidivism hit 48% among Mexican adults over recent a two-week period in the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector, said Chief Rodney Scott. Rates are highest in San Diego; El Paso, Texas; and Texas’ Rio Grande Valley because large cities are on the Mexican side.

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To discourage repeat crossers, the administration has been flying Mexican citizens farther into the country — to Mexico City and distant provincial capitals. Mexican officials support the flights as a way to ease pressure on border cities like Tijuana.

A small group of Mexican men walked two days through brush and boulder-strewn mountains near Tecate, planning to take four days this month to reach Interstate 8, where a driver would take them to San Diego. But agents caught up and rushed them to the border crossing with Tijuana.

For Jose Luis Bello, 37, it was his eighth expulsion since March, having been flown to Mexico City once, and he’s still determined to reach his U.S. citizen children in Columbus, Ohio. Jose Magana, 35, in the same group, was caught eight times in five months. He’s been flown to midsize cities Villahermosa and Queretaro but is eager to return to Tijuana on his way to try to reunite with his wife and children in San Francisco.

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It is a throwback to the 1970s through 2000s, when Mexican men coming for jobs tried to evade agents. Asylum was almost an afterthought to policymakers until families — many from Central America — helped make the U.S. the world’s top destination for asylum-seekers in 2017. Many simply surrendered to agents.

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Trump has repeatedly called asylum “a scam,” largely undoing it before the pandemic. He virtually ended the practice of releasing asylum-seekers in the U.S. with notices to appear in court.

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There were nearly 200,000 pandemic-related expulsions from March through September, but the administration’s attack on asylum goes back to its early days, when thousands of parents were separated from their children to face criminal charges under a “zero tolerance” policy on illegal crossings. Other key orders:

— About 70,000 asylum-seekers from dozens of countries have been returned to Mexico since January 2019 to wait for court hearings. {snip} Less than 1% have won claims, far below rates for all those seeking asylum.

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— The administration struck agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras last year for people to be flown to seek asylum there instead of in America. {snip}

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— The administration also has generally ruled out domestic and gang violence as grounds for asylum, allowed judges to decide cases without a hearing and denied asylum to people from countries with widespread communicable disease or who go through another country on their way to the U.S.-Mexico border.

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